By Lisa Carroll, Public Sector Lead, Microsoft Canada
Many public sector organizations across Canada are tackling the digital transformation needed to meet their goals and confront today’s most pressing challenges. To share some of these inspiring stories, we are kicking off our series, “Ask the Expert.” This series will feature notable public sector leadership voices to giving insights about how their organizations are embracing new technology to improve their operations and become future-ready.
Export Development Canada (EDC) is a Crown corporation dedicated to helping Canadian companies of all sizes respond to international business opportunities. To share how they’re embracing a digital-first approach both within their own organization, and to help their customers, we sat down with Dominic Mailhot, Chief Information Officer at EDC.
What currently is the top priority for EDC?
We help Canadian businesses grow by providing the resources and support they need to succeed in the international market. A major priority for us is helping these businesses become more competitive through strong sustainability practices. We firmly believe that strong ESG (environmental, social and governance) practices are good for business and will help companies become more resilient and competitive. Reducing our environmental impact is a key focus for our organization and is driving our own corporate strategy.
How are you putting this into action?
To lead by example and meet our own ESG goals, we are undergoing a massive digital transformation to modernize our digital infrastructure and provide new capabilities. This started with moving the vast majority of our internal datacenter capacity to the Azure cloud platform. Our datacentres consume most of EDC’s power requirements at our head office, so this is a big step in the right direction. As part of this transition to the cloud, we can measure, analyze and report on the progress of our carbon reduction, and share this as an example for our customers and other Canadian companies.
All change comes with challenges, so we must ask, what’s keeping you up at night?
Navigating the difficult realities of climate change will be one of the biggest challenges of our time, for all organizations. As a financial Crown corporation, EDC has an important role to play in promoting strong ESG practices and supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy, which will not be easy, but we’re up for the job. What’s clear is that the digital transformation is a key element to driving progress and change, for both ourselves and our customers, and to helping us achieve our 2050 net zero commitment.
Read more about Export Development Canada leading Canadian business toward a sustainable—and prosperous—cloud-based future here.
