Speaking at Toronto City Hall

Keynote speaker Lital Marom was invited by the city of Toronto to speak to local Small and Medium Sized businesses (SMBSs) about new ways to grow and scale their business in the digital economy.

The opportunity for digital platforms is perhaps most exciting for SMEs that most countries rely on for economic and employment growth.

1. As platform owners, design and develop the platform, control intellectual property and decide how it will be run. The financial services sector has seen the greatest proliferation of platforms.

2. Digital partners: team with platform owners to offer complementary products and services using APIs. Digital platforms cannot succeed without the support of specialist partners, such as those providing data analytics, marketing software, payment solutions or other fulfilment services that enrich the customer experience.

3.Producers or suppliers: As global phenomena, platforms can help SMEs break through into international markets. According to Accenture’s research in collaboration with China’s G20 young entrepreneur alliance reports that in China two thirds of SMEs generate already a significant amount of their revenue from platforms and nearly all expect to generate higher levels in the future.

As history has shown us, today’s digital platforms can open up the potential for small businesses to reshape the industrial landscape.