Business Services Cluster

BUSINESS SERVICES CLUSTERNisha Chauhan

Rod Shannon

MRK625MT

04.10.2008

VIATECH GUELPH Launched in January, working closely with GPI, Royal

Bnk, Deloitte, Mars Landing and other business leaders

Help small business move towards commercialization

Working towards Life Sciences, the group will meet once a month with a start up company from Guelph to assist with areas such as; financial planning, business planning, and legality issues

NEW BUSINESS SERVICE TECHNOLOGY

Today’s business clusters creating new business technologies into new business clusters

After reading the e-business cluster blog I was able to understand something so simple. Back in the mid 90’s almost every corporation has a website; however, now we see it as a necessary criteria that every company must incorporate.

Traditional websites are now becoming known as web 1.0 Martin’s talk-garnered from his business experience-makes a good case that the smart players will be the early adopters of web 2.0. After all, it will be ubiquitous a decade from now.

SONOMA MOUNTAIN BUSINESS CLUSTER

Located in California, and offer services geared towards business services

Non profit business incubator specializing in sustainable resources, and socially relevant technologies

Its function is to assist entrepreneurs and  startup companies in achieving success through provision of:

1. Mentoring and Coaching

2. A Supportive Service Network

3. An Intellectual and Entrepreneurial Environment

4. Educational and Networking Events

5. Contact to Investment Capital

6. An Affordable Full-featured Physical Infrastructure

MAJOR BUSINESS PLAYERS Some major players that fall within this cluster are the

following:

1. Law: McCarthy Tetrault, Fraser Milner, Blake Cassels & Graydon

2. Accounting: Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KMPG, Ernst & Young

3. Benefits: William M. Mercer, Towers Perrin, Morneau Sobeco.

4. Advertising: MacLaren McCann, Young and Rubicam, BBDO, Envoy Communications.

5. Call Centres: IBM, Minacs Worldwide, AMEX, TD Waterhouse, RoyalSunAlliance.

BUSINESS EVENT The Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance takes on several different

events locally, and internationally every year. The purpose of these events is to showcase the GTA, and provide excellent networking venues for our partners and guests to explore business opportunities for their respective companies.

The next event taking place will be:

BRANHAM 300 Canada’s Top 300 IT Companies

Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2008Start Time:  11:30 a.m.End Time:  2:00 p.m

Pricing              Individual purchase GTMA or YTA Member  $45.00              Individual purchase non-member  $55.00              Table Sponsor *  $450.00

TORONTO BUSINESS CLUSTER

Toronto business services cluster, ranks with North America’s best. The city’s array of service firms,

infrastructure and expertise attract corporate head offices and global professional firms.

Employment: 300,000

BUSINESS WEEK OPENS ONLINE GAMING ARCADE

Business Week Attempted to license its brand to a board game

Collaborated with McGraw-Hill, and introduced a new section on the website for its Innovation and Design channel and will call it Business Week Arcade

 Exemplifies that many different businesses within the business service cluster are beginning to offer different services in different areas.

Business Week has found an opportunity within the e-commerce portion of Business Services, and has used this opportunity to their advantage by introducing online gaming by partnering with Mc Graw Hill

TORONTO FINANCIAL SERVICES Toronto is the industrial and business centre for the country.

Toronto Region is Canada’s financial centre and has the 3rd largest financial services cluster ranked by direct employment in North America, after New York and Chicago.

Over 230,000 people work in the financial and investment-services sector in the Toronto Region.

Toronto is headquarters to the five largest domestic banks, and the majority of insurance, securities, foreign banks, pension and mutual fund companies.

The Toronto Stock Exchange represents the heart of Canada’s capital markets and is the 3rd largest in North America based on market capitalization and the 7th largest in the world.

COMMUNITY SPONSORED SMALL BUSINESS INVESTMENT FUNDS

Together with some affiliated hospitals and other universities, TIG has sponsored seven Community-Sponsored Small Business Investment Funds (CSBIFs).  These professionally managed funds invest in start-up companies established to develop

innovations that originated within the sponsors’ community.

To date, UofT has sponsored 10 CSBIFs that have invested $22 million in 24 companies.  This, in turn, led to an additional

investment of $43 million, or a total of $65 million, in the last four years

INVESTING IN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION IN FINANCIAL SERVICES

Financial services and professional business services are major drivers of Ontario’s knowledge economy.

“We believe the Centre of Excellence will help secure our talent advantage and create a global hub for financial services

education and training.”

“Toronto is home to many innovative financial institutions that are world leaders in their markets”

“The Centre of Excellence is an ideal way for us to capitalize on Toronto’s competitive advantage and attract even more

talented people to work in Canada’s most important industry.”

ASTUTE FINANCIAL SERVICES ENTER NORTH AMERICA VIA TORONTO

GTA is home to 5 million individuals and is also known as the business centre of Canada’s financial service industry.

especially attractive to the European market.

GTA exceeds its credentials as a prime business location, the area offers many advantages to business services.

The Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance is an organization found within this cluster to design and connect investors looking to locate in the GTA with the different things they need to set up their service and build business relationships.

DURHAM REGION: BUSINESS SERVICES

Automotive Services is the largest sector in Durham.

It employs more than 22,000 people and investment within this sector continues to grow.

Canada's newest university, the University of Ontario

Institute of Technology, together with Durham College delivers energy related programs to produce skilled graduates and incubate new and innovative energy businesses

TOP SIX BUSINESS SERVICES WITHIN CANADA

Groupe Savoie: Les Residences Soleil- Boucherville, QC RGO Office Products-Calgary, AB RLG International-Vancouver, BC Trow Associates Inc.-Brampton, ON TAXI-Toronto, ON Procom-Toronto, ON

These top six business services have exceeded financial performance, and achieved some of the strongest results

compared to those 14 years ago.

DIVERSE RANGE OF BUSINESS SERVICES

21% of the Canadian total consists of some 24,000 business and professional service firms in Toronto

9 of Canada's 10 largest law practices are within Toronto

9 of the top 10 accounting firms

7 for the 10 largest advertising and communication agencies

10 top human resources and benefits firms

Toronto's Diverse Range of Core Business Services(Percentage of labour force, based on 2001 census figures)