Getting your Business Online (or upgrading your presence) with Canada’s Digital Adoption Program CDAP

You make a great cup of coffee. It’s what you do, what you’re best at, and what you’ve built your business around. But you can’t build a coffee business if no one is willing to pay to drink it.

Having an online presence is the best way to get the word out for your business. Every day your potential customers are browsing on their phones, checking social media, and seeing reviews for businesses around you. Even if you’re not an expert in marketing, it’s obvious that if you’re not where your customers are, then you’re losing out. 

A solid digital marketing strategy covers all aspects of the outreach of the business and the efforts to get new clients in the online space. First and foremost, as a business it is necessary to have a website that complies with Search Engine Optimization best practices in order to be discoverable in search engines like Google, Yahoo! Or Bing. Your website is the flagship portal where all the information of your business and how customers can purchase your products. Other digital marketing tools should be also assessed to help you reach the target audience that you desire. Social media, paid advertising and organic traffic are core tools to use according to the market and industry of the business.

E-commerce is a marketing tool that facilitates selling, inventory control, purchasing, delivering, storage of merchandise and payments. There are large platforms that offer e-commerce services with established templates ready to use. A business can also have their own custom software developed by companies such as

Konverge Digital Solutions who are dedicated to developing automated tools for companies and ease the day-to-today operations of the business in any area they require. Whether it is developing web apps for mobile presence or just automation of payment systems, we offer a wide array of custom software services that will help your business grow in a competitive digitized world.

One example of an automated tool that facilitates operations for businesses is the Menusano nutritional analysis online tool. This software creates the labels with nutritional info that food manufacturers and other enterprises that offer or commercialize meals or food items, such as restaurants, breweries, cannabis shops or hospitals, require to sell their products or meals. It specifies the nutritional value of each item according to their ingredients, preparation and method of cooking. This allows businesses to considerably save money and time in requesting the labels to food labs. Bakeries, schools, candy shops and even pizza joints take advantage of this tool to label their products and meals according to worldwide legal requirements in order to commercialize or offer any food item or meal. 

Simply put, one single fits-it-all tool for every SME or large corporation does not exist. Every automated process, online platform or digital strategy to help your business grow, has to be assessed and developed according to the needs of each business.

That is why, it is important for every business owner or company to obtain expert advice and aid to strategically tackle all the requirements for you to develop an effective online presence and avoid wasting resources in tools that are not convenient for your business. This is why the Government of Canada is helping Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to join the digital transformation and start promoting online or develop further their efforts to increase their capabilities in the digital space. Announced in Budget 2021, the Canada Digital Adoption Plan (CDAP) will allow business owners to boost their businesses:

Stream 1. Grow Your Business Online: With a funding of up to $336.8 million, eligible SMEs can take advantage of e-commerce benefits through microgrants of up to $2,400CAN, aside from accessing a network of experts in digital tools available for them.

Stream 2. Boost Your Business Technology: Eligible businesses can receive grants to cover the cost of experts that will help them upgrade their digital capabilities. Moreover, they can access a network of Canadian digital advisors, as well as youth-founded placements from the government.

As part of the Grow Your Business Online program, the Government of Canada issued a Call for Applicants addressed to non-profit organizations that can support businesses on adopting e-commerce capabilities. The application period for this Stream 1 ended in August 2021. More than 90,000 SMEs will benefit with microgrants and e-commerce advisory services, as well as hiring youth digital advisors to help them design and implement their e-commerce strategies. 

The Boost Your Business Technology Stream provides business owners grants of up to $15,000CAN to cover up to 90% of the cost to develop a digital plan. For its implementation, the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) offers zero-interest loans of up to $100,000CAN and a wage subsidy of $7,300CAN to hire and train a youth placement. As of November 2021 this program is not receiving applications yet but updates on it can be received by subscribing on the Government of Canada website. For questions or additional information, please visit the contact us page for the CDAP.

Either if you’re a coffee shop owner of a food manufacturer, it is necessary for you to jump in on the digital wagon and start utilizing online resources that can make your day-to-day operations easier and cost-effective. Tools like the online software nutritional analysis that Menusano offers and the CDAP from the Government of Canada to develop a plan to digitize your business are examples of opportunities that can help to automate processes in your operations and boost your business opportunities for growth.