Canadian firms are making their own locally focused knowledge sharing platforms, allowing Canada’s businesses to benefit more by using market-appropriate systems. -By Belinda Jones
In this noisy, noisy world, being able to get good information and use it appropriately can have a massive impact on the bottom line. This is doubly true in today’s hybrid work environment, where many employees and leaders who need to share information and draw on common organizational tenets are no longer routinely co-located. As a result, many Canadian firms are turning to knowledge sharing platforms to try and get a handle on their information flow, employee education and training programs, RFP response times, and compliance.
Globally developed knowledge sharing platforms – and particularly American-made tools – would love to serve Canadian firms. However, it turns out that locally developed and Canada-specific platforms can offer specific benefits over and above what’s available from the international competition. Here, some of Canada’s top domestically based knowledge sharing platforms will be examined with an eye to how they can ease the workload and smooth the way forward for Canadian firms of all sizes.
Nearly 40% of all top-line revenue can be traced back to RFPs. In Canadian business culture, it’s particularly popular. Yet the process can be complex and time-consuming, which can be both frustrating and costly, especially as a tighter economic environment makes the ability to respond quickly to sale opportunities a business imperative.
Loopio, which counts Toronto as its headquarters despite being a remote-first firm, offers Canadian firms a way to manage the whole process more efficiently. Its awareness of the quirks of the Canadian market – plus its high-quality bilingual support – makes it an easy choice. Now celebrating its 10th year in business, the company has been balancing staff size with strategic acquisitions, including the recent purchase of Anvio, which gives Loopio market-leading Salesforce integration.
Even better? Loopio’s operations align with key Canadian business and cultural values. It publishes an annual DEIB report online for full transparency about its business practices, has multiple employee resource groups for women, BIPOC, 2SLGBTQ+, and mental health support, and partners with diversity-forward groups like Queertech. The company was also a 2022 winner of the University of Waterloo’s Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) Employer Impact Award for Impact in equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
Waterloo’s Axonify uses AI,
gamification, and micro-learning
to train employees more effectively
Axonify, founded in 2011, specializes in effective employee training solutions. In particular, the company offers knowledge tools to train and provide continuing education to frontline workers. In addition to serving many top Canadian firms, the company counts over 3.7 million users in 160+ countries among its clients. Most are focused in the retail, hospitality, and restaurant industries.
The company works to differentiate itself from traditional LMS options for employee education and engagement. Bite-sized training sessions (micro-learning) can be completed in as little as five minutes daily, from a phone on the front line vs needing training time away or a dedicated learning space. Gamification elements encourage engagement and make learning stick. AI-assisted designs make it so that individual learners can get customized updates and plans each time they log in to learn – and they are logging in to learn, with 83% of Axonify users worldwide logging in two to three times each week for a session.
It’s making a difference. By addressing a traditionally neglected audience – frontline workers – Axonify can directly impact and improve customer experiences for millions of Canadians as they eat, shop, and travel, especially in a market where labor is tight and many companies don’t have an abundance of extra time to devote to training. Axonify makes it possible to better support frontline workers, and their unique approach has earned them the 2024 Most Innovative Workforce Enablement Solutions Provider award from Corporate Vision. In the coming years, the firm plans to do even more to push the envelop on training, with significant investments in AI-driven and AI-enabled learning tools, chat support, and learning plan modification elements.
Canada Revenue
Agency leads the way on tax collaboration
Taxes are an unavoidable part of life, but thanks to the Canada Revenue Agency’s proprietary Knowledge Sharing Platform for Tax Administrations (KSPTA), dealing with taxes is getting less painful. Designed to help tax officials and tax industry professionals around the world share knowledge and effectively perform tax administration, the platform now covers some 209 jurisdictions and 25 international and regional tax organization.
Even better? While many may think of the world of tax as rather moribund and static, the KSPTA has been a highly active and interactive group, giving Canada a place at the forefront of tax policy and performance. Since 2020, the KSPTA has hosted more than 55 virtual events with participants tuning from 196 countries around the world.
Targeted at tax professionals, the resource is free, and aims to help all of its user members become more effective and better educated. Membership soared during the Pandemic years, when industry events were canceled, and the KPSTA counts more than 24,000 people as active users.
Knowledge shared is multiplied
All too often, Canadian firms are expected to make do with tools developed south of the border that don’t account for Canada’s unique quirks. However, when it comes to knowledge sharing platforms, Canada has plenty of homegrown platforms to leverage. From highly technical tax and compliance resources aimed at niche markets within the economy to gamified, AI-driven training tools that impact the broadest swathe of frontline workers in the country, Canada’s own platforms are making a difference.
The best part? The platforms highlighted here are just a taste of what’s available locally, and more platforms are coming online each year. So, there’s no need to settle for a bland, international tool – Canadian firms can find something much more interesting right here at home.