4. Conclusions and Next Steps
Performance measurement is vital part of building a robust and successful entrepreneurial ecosystem in Canada. For too long, many BAIs – and the public bodies that help fund them – have operated in the absence of sufficient data about the economic impact of business incubation and acceleration activities. Notwithstanding the efforts of many BAIs to measure the impact of their activities, a lack of consistent metrics across institutions and inadequate tools for collecting, compiling and analyzing the data from client companies has undermined the ability to accurately assess the economic benefits that BAIs create. A lack of coordination and collaboration on performance measurement has also resulted in lost opportunities to champion our achievements and to foster improvements in the performance of Canada's entrepreneurial support system.
A Canada-wide system for performance measurement would yield many benefits. It would help program leaders and policymakers better measure and understand the factors that drive success. It would enhance the ability to identify and implement improvements in programming, to share best practices across institutions and jurisdictions, to systematically generate better outcomes and to market Canada as a dynamic place in which to start and grow a business. It would help firms make better decisions about where and how to access support. BAIs could better identify opportunities to collaborate. And, a commitment to openly reporting the results, would build public confidence in the economic benefits these organizations create for Canada.
Figure 6: Proposed timing: pilot, evaluation, outcomes and next steps
It is expected that a successful pilot will generate a shared commitment across the BAI community to using the lessons learned from the pilot to establish a sustainable institutional framework for managing the PMF on an ongoing basis. As such, a number of next steps will help the community shepherd the PMF beyond the pilot phase, as depicted in Figure 6.
Data Analysis and Reporting. Once the 2018 data is aggregated, Statistics Canada and ISED will generate descriptive statistics and link the data to administrative files within Statistics Canada and other data sources to extend the descriptive statistics both in scope and time. For example, the growth profiles of BAI clients based on key performance indicators such as revenue and employment growth may be used to compare BAI clients to the general population of firms. These analysis and reporting exercises will not produce a definitive view of the economic impact of BAIs, but they will help illustrate the kind of data-driven insights that can be expected once the PMF expands in scale and assembles a large enough pool of data over time.
Pilot Evaluation and BAI Engagement on Next Steps. In parallel, participating BAIs and government partners will work together to reflect on the pilot process and identify valuable lessons and insights for managing a national performance measurement process with an expanded group of BAI participants. While data collection and reporting activities are expected to continue beyond April 2019, BAIs will be consulted on how best to govern and manage the performance measurement framework and reporting process on an ongoing basis. Among other things, these discussions will determine which entity or entities will maintain the relationship with the data sharing platform; the process for updating the measurement framework (including common metrics and definitions) over time; the process for onboarding new BAIs; and the responsibility for analyzing and reporting on BAI outcomes to key stakeholders and the public.
With these foundational steps in place, the BAI Steering Committee and its partners government will continue to invite BAIs from across the country to join in contributing their data to the performance measurement platform. Greater participation from an increasingly diverse group of BAIs will strengthen the analytical potential of the data and broaden the benefits of effective performance measurement to more regions and sectors of the Canadian economy. At the same time, it will be important to onboard government funding partners at various levels of government in order for BAIs to reap the true benefits of streamlined reporting.
In conclusion, the PMF Pilot serves as a vital step forward in building a national performance measurement for BAIs across Canada. It will establish consistent metrics for measuring the impact of BAI programs on firm performance, along with clear definitions for each performance indicator. The pilot will also demonstrate the successful collection and aggregation of consistent data from multiple BAIs across Canada using a data sharing platform that will streamline the data collection, analysis and reporting process. The aggregated data will then be used to generate a wide range of descriptive statistics that will foster a better understanding of the role BAI programs play in firm growth. Ultimately, this work will inform BAIs and the government on how to most effectively support innovative growth-oriented firms in Canada and these insights, in turn, will help accelerate the growth of world class companies in a variety of high value sectors.