What is digital transformation, a concept “which means everything and says nothing”, agrees Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of Economy and Innovation? How can an entrepreneur navigate the thousands of platforms and software on offer?
Posted at 11:05 a.m.
This support is precisely what Quebec wants to offer with its Digital Transformation Offensive launched in March 2021, and for which a new sum of $24.6 million was announced on Monday after the $56.8 million already granted. It is estimated that this new amount will support 2,000 companies, in addition to the 9,000 that have embarked on the program for 10 months. In total, promised Minister Fitzgibbon at a press conference, Quebec will invest 130 million by next March in this “digital transition process”.
“This program is a human support program, explained the Minister. One of the problems in digitization is often that the entrepreneur has different possibilities. There are software vendors who come to see him, he is taken with a problem of choosing. »
49,000 companies “aware”
The government is counting on a partnership with 12 economic organizations, which have the mandate to support their members in their specific sector. These include representatives from the furniture industry, fashion, food processing and tourism. To recruit these 11,000 companies, Quebec estimates that it “sensitized” some 49,000 of them to the potential to modernize their business model.
The condition is that the government subsidy be matched by the company for this first step. These are only projects aimed at establishing the need and identifying the tools for this digital transition. Larger investments for the acquisition of software solutions and the modification of production, in particular, are not part of the mandate of this program.
“Is there enough money, 130 million for the digital transition offensive? If it is missing, we will put others, announced Mr. Fitzgibbon in response to a question from a journalist. Technically, at 50-50, 260 million analyzes are done. We will see the conclusion. We are talking about 49,000 companies, of which 25% will go ahead. »
In concrete terms, these “analyses” aim to identify the best ways for companies to improve their business model through technology. “Because production must be agile, flexible and personalized, our companies have no choice but to be smart and connected”, explained during the press briefing Julie Ethier, General Manager of Développement économique Longueuil. (DEL) and representative for the occasion of the Network of Centers of Industrial Expertise (RCEI).
Transactional Blue Cart
For Minister Fitzgibbon, it is obvious that the smallest companies whose scope of action is local do not necessarily have an interest in embarking on a digital transition. Instead, he is counting on the approximately 100,000 companies in Quebec of substantial size, which have international ambitions or which could take advantage of digital technology to “increase their sales, have a better knowledge of the market and optimize their supply chain”, he said. -He specifies.
It intends to announce new digitization projects by next March. Technically, 48.6 million remain to be distributed out of the 130 million promised. “What we are announcing today is not the end, we are already working on a third cohort of projects that I would like to announce by the end of March,” said the Minister. New announcements regarding the transactional aspect of the Blue Basket are also planned by then, he said.