Empowering Canadian SMEs to Compete with E-Commerce Giants
For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Canada, selling online has become essential to survival. But the platforms that offer access to millions of customers are often controlled by the same global giants competing against them.
Ahmed Doha, a supply chain management and business analytics researcher at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, is examining the pitfalls of that access and whether there is another way forward.
His research considers a simple but urgent question: how can Canadian SMEs compete when titans like Amazon and Walmart also control the marketplace they depend on?
Backed by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant, Doha is developing a generative AI-powered cross-vendor experience model that could help SMEs collaborate and offer something large platforms aren’t designed to deliver — a complete shopping experience.