Conference Board roundtable recommends measures to foster culture of commerce

A group of senior business, academic and government leaders has issued a suite of recommendations to help promote a strong culture of commerce that will translate into greater "sales from new and significantly improved goods and services". The Leaders' Roundtable on Commercialization (LRTC) has developed 12 targets within six strategic initiatives to stimulate commercialization by focusing on select areas where Canada can achieve or build upon global competitiveness.

The report comes at a time when innovation and competitiveness are not enjoying a high political profile. Yet the urgency of increasing commercialization has galvanized the work of the LRTC, which was convened by the Conference Board of Canada (CBoC) to seek a private sector-led solution to Canada's weak commercialization track record. Last year it issued an initial report that contained six "Quick Hit" recommendations to be implemented within a year (R$, May 3/05).

"The LTRC is trying to make a call to action for businesses. It believes that a lot of things can be achieved without government throwing money at it," says Brian Guthrie, CBoC's director of innovation and knowledge management. "We have to stop worrying about the media or Joe Six-Pack. Innovation, productivity and competitiveness are just words to the public … If we get 5,000 people on side with this — senior bureaucrats, policy types, academics and business leaders — we've cracked the nut."

The report — Picking a Path to Prosperity: A Strategy for Global-Best Commerce — was backed by the CBoC and complements a major new report released last month's by an Industry Canada-appointed task force led by Joseph Rotman (R$, April 28/06). The LRTC is comprised of 50 senior business executives, university presidents and government DMs and co-chaired by David Pecaut, senior partner and director, the Boston Consulting Group and Don Pether, president and CEO, Dofasco Inc.

Key to the implementation of the report's strategic priorities is the creation of a Centre for Innovation and Prosperity (CIP), which would take over from the LRTC to drive the agenda for the next five years. While the report suggests that the CBoC initiate the CIP after consultation with others, Guthrie says the operational role could be assumed by existing groups or even a new entity.

The objective is to undertake core activities such as special projects or the work of the LRTC's various working groups to encourage business, government and academia to work together towards increased commercialization.

Already the LRTC working groups have produced a so-called innovation playbook for mature industries which is now being tested in the field and have been examining university-business intellectual property agreements with the view of producing a template that could simplify the negotiation process.

"We have to have evidence-based decision making for picking paths — Canadian competencies, technical and commercial global opportunities — so there's push and pull," he says. "We need to pull together leaders from all sectors to establish a rigorous, credible decision-making process."

While the LRTC morphs into the CIP, the group's work will focus on choosing five to eight areas where Canada can play. The hope is that the right people, combined with good evidence and good ideas, will convince government to incorporate the areas into policy and run with them. Guthrie adds that the ultimate focus will be on increasing commerce – a term he says is more appropriate than commercialization.

"This is absolutely Doug Barber (former CEO of Gennum Corp and an LRTC member). The phase ‘culture of commerce' came from him with his prompting," says Guthrie. "Commercialization is a word that doesn't quite work. The cult of commercialization in government lingo means, how do we turn scientists into entrepreneurs? With commerce, you're providing value to a customer, not a market."

The LRTC is also collaborating with Rotman's task force to establish a strategy for getting commercialization back on the federal government's agenda. But Guthrie says that while their objectives are complementary, the groups offer differing approaches to the challenges of increasing private sector R&D and commerce. For example, the Rotman report includes recommendations that would require $278 million in public and private funding to initiate and more than $1 billion to ramp up to full scale. The LRTC, on the other hand, does not have any costing for its recommendations, preferring to encourage businesses to spend in areas that will increase innovation, productivity and ultimately commerce.

"There are fundamental differences between the two in the area of the diagnostique. The Rotman mandate is to report to the Industry minister and it asks, ‘what can governments do?' The LRTC asks, ‘what can Canada do?' It's all about commerce which is a private sector prerogative," says Guthrie. "On the other hand, Rotman wants to advise on the creation of the CIP and where we take the LRTC going forward. The Rotman task force members are all pretty independent thinkers and Joe is a crusty guy. He's not going to capitulate to what the government says."

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