Majeed Javdani is a Principal of Mercator Group and an internationally recognized practitioner in law and business.
Economic growth in the modern era is no longer dictated by physical infrastructure or proximity to dominant markets, but by the ability to harness knowledge resources effectively. With shifting global trade dynamics, including new tariff policies, Canada has the opportunity to leverage its rich intellectual capital to develop emerging value chains without relying on the U.S. as its primary market. By focusing on innovation and intangible assets, Canada can strengthen its position in the global economy, enabling businesses to thrive by creating value-driven ecosystems that are independent of traditional trade dependencies.
The commonly used terms for categorizing economies—least developed, developing and developed economies—are obsolete. A modern economy is the result of evolution through the integration of emerging knowledge domains relevant to AI and space. So, with the emergence of the space economy, the availability of common infrastructure like ports and roads is no longer an indicator of development.
In this age, the protection of common infrastructure, such as ports or power plants, is no longer the first priority of national security. The key resources that administrations need to strategize around to maintain national security today are knowledge resources.
The emerging intangible assets represent knowledge resources, which will soon become the core driving assets of any developed economy.
The Canadian economy has produced extensive knowledge resources over the course of its evolution and development in various industries and sectors. The Canadian economy has the potential to be among the first movers in the new economic era if its knowledge resources are utilized to enable emerging intangible assets.
As an entrepreneur in the age of intangible assets, you need to view the Canadian economy as a well-established infrastructure that provides the knowledge resources necessary to enable emerging value chains.
You must shift your approach from treating the Canadian economy as a platform to target the U.S. market to leveraging its knowledge resources to develop innovative value chains.
In the age of digital economies, even landlocked territories with strong knowledge resources can play a determinant role in emerging value chains that are driven by intangible assets. The Canadian economy is a system rich in knowledge resources, in addition to possessing all the common characteristics of a developed economy.
I view the Canadian economy as a system consisting of functioning components and resources that shape a developed economy. In a systematic approach, unlimited interfaces can be defined for a system in various contexts, depending on the resources that the system controls.
Of course, one context—and the most common one—is when we invoke the components and resources of this system to utilize the local market of Canada as a business destination. However, that is not the subject of this article.
The competitive edge in today’s global economy is knowledge, and knowledge resources are what distinguish economies from one another.
Business enterprises in modern economies are built around intangible assets. Among these, the most critical type of intangible assets are knowledge resources.
Here, I want to examine this system in the context of emerging value chains that utilize knowledge resources to produce novel business processes.
What distinguishes businesses from each other is the innovative processes they develop to operate. Knowledge resources enable innovative processes; in other words, businesses can develop innovative processes on top of knowledge resources.
The Canadian economy is a system with the capacity to initiate emerging value chains without necessarily targeting the U.S. or Canada itself as business destinations.
From the perspective of supply chain risk management, knowledge resources are strategic resources with high profit impact, high supply risk and high sourcing difficulty. In modern economies of intangible assets, what is strategic is knowledge resources, not rare earth materials. Therefore, what the Canadian economy system provides is the most strategic resource, which, if utilized appropriately, will enable innovative value chains.
To utilize the resources of any system, you need to define compatible interfaces that provide processes aligned with the system’s overall architecture. These interfaces allow you to utilize the resources to run your business functions.
These interfaces are business processes that can be defined in the form of a business venture. Therefore, your business venture serves as an interface that utilizes the resources of the system to enable a value chain.
I will give you an example to simplify this. The auto industry has a strong presence in Canada, and there is no doubt that it is one of the most well-established and mature sectors of the Canadian economy.
Since the NAFTA era, which is now past considering the recent trade policies of the U.S. administration, an extensive supply chain for the auto industry has been developed in Canada, primarily to supply the North American market, specifically the United States.
The critical point is that while tariffs have complicated supplying the U.S. market as a Canadian business, the knowledge resources that are mature and well-developed in Canada represent astronomic value when utilized to develop emerging value chains globally.
The Canadian auto industry is an inventory of knowledge resources that can fuel innovative value chains in global business sectors associated with the auto industry. These opportunities can be significantly more profitable for both investors and the Canadian economy as a whole than simply supplying the U.S. market with cars.
The competitive advantage in today’s economy lies not in physical resources, but in knowledge-based assets that drive innovation and value creation. Canada’s economy, rather than being viewed solely as a domestic market, should be recognized as an enabler of emerging value chains built upon intangible assets.
Entrepreneurs must shift their approach from targeting the Canadian market to strategically utilizing its knowledge resources for business development. By integrating these resources into innovative processes, businesses can establish sustainable and competitive enterprises in the evolving global economy.
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