OD150 - Rounding the corner

IOD150 Rounding the corner

Respondent location

The majority of early respondents are located in Ontario and Quebec, with 3 regions demonstrating an emerging yet mature industrial Open Data capability – these include the Greater Toronto Area, Waterloo Region, and Montreal.

Alberta: 2
British Columbia: 5
Nova Scotia: 1
Ontario: 65
Quebec: 12
New Brunswick: 3
Saskatchewan: 1

Company age

Most respondents are emerging companies between 1–5 years old. However, 15% of respondent companies were 21+ years old, demonstrating an ability and willingness for established companies to integrate open data into their businesses.

Number of companies founded in 2016: 8
Number of companies founded in 2015: 10
Number of companies founded between 2011 and 2014: 34
Number of companies founded between 2006 and 2010: 12
Number of companies founded between 2001 and 2005: 6
Number of companies founded between 1996 and 2000: 10
Number of companies founded before 1995: 14

Revenue source

There is a strong preponderance among respondent companies towards revenue streams based on analyzing and interpreting data for clients. As many respondents indentified "difficulty finding/accessing data" as a key challenge, it is reasonable to expect that those who are familiar with open data have parlayed this knowledge into analytical services for companies that do not have this capability.

Revenue Sources
Software sales & licensing: 40 companies
Subscription fees: 39 companies
Data analysis for clients: 37
Consulting: 34
Government Contracts: 20

Industries represented

There is a wide distribution of industries represented, a result of the (1) varying availability of data across jurisdictions and (2) levels of granularity. It is expected that one of the leading industries is Geospatial/Mapping, as at the Federal and Provincial levels the most frequently released open data sets are geospatial (NRCan is the leading Federal department with over 110,000 open data sets on Canada's open data portal).

Data sources

There is a consistent use of data from all government jurisdictions in Canada – knowing that many of these companies are location specific due to data availability, this demonstrates a significant opportunity for government to create common data sets and standards to permit companies to scale. It is also interesting that some Candian companies have been able to integrate US data sets into their business.

Provincial Governments: 61 companies
Government of Canada: 57 companies
Private Sources: 48 companies
Municipal Governments: 47 companies
US Sources: 5 companies

Number of data sets used

The overwhelming majority of respondent companies use under 50 data sets, which indicates their businesses rely heavily on them. This reliance underlines the importance among companies to have access to open data that is released at reliable intervals and is machine readable.

Number of companies that use 1 to 10 data sources: 46
Number of companies that use 11 to 50 data sources: 21
Number of companies that use 51 to 100 data sources: 4
Number of companies that use 101+ data sources: 18

Greatest challenges to business success

Repondents were asked to identify their top business challenges. Unsurprisingly, there are a myriad of challenges facing companies using open data in Canada, and respondent companies were consistent in the areas they found most challenging. As Canada begins to understand the needs of business using Open Data, these challenges present important guideposts for creating greater opportunity for businesses.

It is too difficult to find what data sets are available: 51 companies
The data is not released frequently enough: 50 companies
The data is not in an easy to use format: 47 companies
Data is not granular enough: 44 companies
The data is not comparable across jurisdictions: 37 companies
I cannot interact with knowledgeable data managers: 31 companies
The data lacks metadata: 28 companies
There are licensing issues: 27 companies

Willingness to share data back into the community

An overwhelming majority of companies already provide Open Data for consumption by the wider community, or are willing to consider doing so. This is important to note, as companies that consume Open Data provided by governments and other sources, are also will to increase the availability of Open Data within the broader community. By increasing the availability and quality of data there exists increasing opportunity for extracting value from Open Data.

24 companies currently provide open data for public consumption.
53 companies currently don't provide open data but would consider doing so.
12 companies currently don't provide open data and would not consider doing so.

Willingness to pay for needed data

The desire for new data sets is strong. Almost half of the respondent companies indicated they would be eager to pay for additional data sets to improve their business. A further handful of companies identified that while there are additional data sets they need to be more competitive, they are unable to afford it. Moving forward, it is imporant that data providers and stewards address as many of these needs as possible with free data sources in order to increase Canada's business competitiveness.

Yes – the cost is worth it: 33 companies
Unsure: 29 companies
No – we can't afford it: 19 companies
No – not worth paying for: 8 companies

Respondents were asked to identify their top business challenges. Unsurpisingly, there are a myriad of challenges facing companies using open data in Canada, and respondent companies were consistent in the areas they found most challenging. As Canada begins to understand the needs of businesses using Open Data, these challenges present important guideposts for creating greater opportunity for businesses.

t's been a few months since we first launched OD150 and we're now rounding the corner, nearing the end.

Fresh out of the gate we received a couple dozen respondents from mostly Ontario and Quebec. These early birds helped us uncover some interesting challenges that present important giuideposts for creating greater opportunity for business.

Since then, we've had another couple dozen of respondents so it's time we update our running list of OD150 friends and refresh our findings. Get on the list and help us create a better, more open Canada.