Analysis of the 89 of 150 Open Data 150 (OD150) respondents as of November 2016.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. There is a strong preponderance among respondent companies towards revenue streams
based on analyzing and interpreting data for clients. As many respondents identified
“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.

4. 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).

5. 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 governments to create common data
sets and standards to permit companies to scale. It is also interesting that some
Canadian companies have been able to integrate US data sets into their business.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. Respondents 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
businesses using Open Data, these
challenges present important
guideposts for creating greater
opportunity for businesses.

9. 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.

10. 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 important 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.