Why do we need an innovation centre on 17th Ave?
Challenges & Opportunities
Restaurants need to be competitive now more than ever.
Education around innovation is not always easy.
Technology at the restaurant level presents many challenges for operators. Operators are having difficulty keeping up with consumer demand with the three largest challenges being:
- "Teaching employees how to use it"
- "Getting familiar with the technology and training staff in its use"
- "Cost and getting staff and customers to buy in"
-- 2019 National Restaurant Association and Technomic, Inc.
74%
of companies
are investing in off-premises programs but none of the top 5 investments include customer-facing technology
33%
percent of customers
say that many of the restaurants they order from do not have their own ordering sites
35%
percent of consumers
agree that it is easier to customize their order on a restaurant’s own site or app
We break down barriers to innovation that restaurants face.
More than half of all businesses in Canada reported that they face obstacles related to innovation in 2019. Lack of skills ranked the highest in these obstacles at 29.7% -- even with existing incubators, government programs, and external support.
(StatCan, 2021)
A survey conducted by Stats Canada shows that the majority of businesses in Canada were expected to be impacted, smaller businesses expected more significant impacts, such as a hit in their profitability and sales.
Implementing new technology is hard
"Over one in ten businesses with 1 to 4 (11.2%) employees and around one-quarter of businesses with 5 to 19 employees (22.0%) and 20 to 99 employees (26.2%) had an online sales platform or had plans to implement one (StatsCan, 2021)." Even though this is the case, smaller businesses were less likely to adopt or incorporate various technologies. The disconnect between the available resources continues to have no effect on small business growth in Calgary.
Since small business makes up 98% of all employer business in Canada, these businesses have a significant impact on the overall Canadian economy.
(StatsCan, 2021)
THE RED MILE INNOVATION CENTRE
OUR SOLUTION
Feature 01
New idea creation and problem solving
Feature 02
Culture for innovation, collaboration, and education
Feature 03
Local connectedness
Area of Focus
This innovation centre will serve as a drop in centre providing highly-customized programs and education on digital strategies, including but not limited to: social media, marketing strategies, and operations support. This initiative will be supported as a partner of Platform Calgary, Calgary Economic Development and the City of Calgary Business Improvement Area Group.
The recent pandemic has highlighted the importance of adapting to change rapidly. The drive for innovation is more intense than ever before. Global competition (Amazon, Walmart, online stores), rising expectations of customers (accessibility, price), and escalating complexity now makes innovation imperative to enable success. To remain competitive, companies need to continually improve and reinvent themselves. This innovation will foster a connection between business owners and experts from Calgary Economic Development, Innovate Calgary, Platform Calgary, and many valued volunteers in the technology industry to provide valuable technology insight, education, and expertise to allow for technology translation to mom-pop shops on 17th Ave.
Sense the unmet needs of the consumer from awareness of the 17th Ave. ecosystem and with data insight of the companies
Work with experts in high-tech innovation (tech-startups), passionate and knowledgeable students (Highschool & University), and local businesses to investigate potential innovations from these insights
Create market changing innovations that are suitable to the culture of the company and the 17th Ave. business area
THE RED MILE INNOVATION CENTRE
Our Impact and How We Differentiate
What does innovation really mean?
We build intimate offerings to bring the concept of innovation to life and lead with a new narrative around technology and ways of working. Innovation is not simply implementing new technology or utilizing fancy robots. It’s a mindset - demonstrated by our agile thinking and lean-startup labs. It’s process efficiency and freeing up human capital for higher value activities - shown through our robotic process automation stations. It’s reimagining how we use technology to create experiences - with retrofit showrooms featuring “Internet of Things” solutions.
While there are many Innovation Centres across Calgary, our offerings are right-sized for your business with a specific understanding of the ecosystem on 17th Ave in mind. We want to shift your thinking in a way that makes sense for you and your business given your scale and vision for the future.
The future can be scary but it doesn’t have to be.
The Red Mile Innovation Centre thrives on simplifying complexity. We want to make the wonderful tools of technology and entrepreneurial thinking accessible to everyone at any stage of their business, with a particular focus on growth and scaling. Through our programs, we engage a variety of businesses and stakeholders to integrate capabilities across Calgary.
We want to lead by example. We advocate for greater community development between business owners on 17th Ave and we want to practice what we preach. Therefore, we want to collaborate with surrounding Innovation Centres such as Platform Calgary, Creative Destruction Lab and Calgary Economic Development.
ATB Entrepreneur Centre and Red Mile Innovation Centre
Given that ATB Financial’s (ATB) Entrepreneur Centre is located right on 17th Ave, we see them as a key collaborator. ATB is a leader in innovation and advancing entrepreneurship and we want to help them broaden their impact through focusing specifically on businesses on 17th Ave. While ATB has a wide range of capabilities, their focus is on “mentoring, networking, and banking” (ATB Entrepreneur Centre, n.d.).
We differentiate by focusing specifically on using innovation as a tool to streamline and scale. Our community advisors are entrepreneurs within 17th Ave themselves, as well as business leaders with local expertise. This community mindset allows us to achieve more focused results within 17th Ave