National Data Platform works to analyze growth of expanding companies

Wilfrid Laurier University’s Lazaridis School of Business and Economics is working with HockeyStick to create a data platform to track the growth metrics of Canadian companies.

The National Data Platform has secured $2.5 million dollars in federal funding to help benefit Canadian businesses.

The data platform will assist with companies’ day-to-day operations. It will also assist with the Canadian government’s analysis of what makes companies successful and enables them to grow.

Kim Morouney, executive director of the Lazaridis school of Business and Economics, explained that the data platform will be influential to the success of growth and expansion into global markets.

The funding will be allocated to a nationwide goal of company prosperity.

“We can begin to pull together all of the relevant information from startup to scale-up organizations that have grown and are ready to move on to the next growth stage [of their company],” Morouney said.

Incubators and accelerators have provided company support throughout various stages of their growth.

… we can analyze what’s working and what’s not.

However, Morouney explained that it is difficult to know what works best and which routines are the most effective in supporting companies.

“If the Canadian economy is to prosper as we go into an increased digital reality then our technology companies really need to be able to grow to a global size, and no one knows what makes a globally successful company,” Morouney said.

When it comes to the design of the platform, companies can enter the nuts and bolts of the business while updating additional information periodically as time goes on.

This allows for company data to be kept private, while ensuring information is stored somewhere that is easily accessible.

Ultimately, this kind of design allows for companies to share information with perspective investment partners.

“We don’t just invest our time and money into something without knowing what works and what doesn’t. This is a competitive advantage for Canada because we are not aware of any other countries that have attempted a nationwide data collection and provision network,” Morouney said.

The Canadian government also plans to analyze the data that companies input into the platform.

The information given will provide insight into ways to fund and educate incubators on how to improve startups and scale-ups.

We go looking to find the most promising tech companies and invite them to be part of our scale up 

program.

“The companies own their data but for the purpose of analysis we’re able to anonymize the data so that we don’t know which exact company that this data belongs to,” Morouney said.

“Then we can analyze what’s working and what’s not.”

The data platform will also provide future opportunities, such as a scale-up program. Within the program, the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics will seek out thriving technology companies.

“We go looking to find the most promising tech companies and invite them to be part of our scale up program,” Morouney said.

“Using this data platform in order to host the applications our companies will apply directly through the platform.”