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Paradigm I Use-Divide I e and Poverty I Concept paper

Human and economic development are the primary goals of societies,
Trade fosters economic development,
Competitive businesses are engines of trade,
E can help businesses be competitive.

For E to help businesses become competitive, institutions at the following level must take initiatives

• Macro level, typically government and policy making institutions,

• Meso level, such as trade support institutions, NGOs, chambers or associations,

• Micro level, such as enterprises, SMEs, cooperatives, etc. These initiatives can impact businesses directly or indirectly in three ways

• E for business is the way E can have an impact on businesses indirectly through the business environment by making available quality e-specific resources,

• E as a business is the case where E is the business of the enterprise. It directly impacts this business, and indirectly impacts the businesses which benefit from these E products and services,

• E in business is the way ICTs can have a direct impact on business through the improvement of effectiveness and efficiency of the business’s production or marketing processes.

- Assessment and initiative selection

To select the most effective and efficient initiatives, tools and measures are needed to determine the present situation (assessment). Some tools and measurements work better than others, and experience shows that given a specific situation some initiatives are more effective and efficient than others.

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Use-divide article

It can be asserted that the present level of frustration with e-solutions is not connected to the weaknesses of the solutions but rather to managerial weaknesses. These weaknesses are either related to the inability of managers to decide where and when to use e-solutions and for what purpose or to their inability to assess the impact of e-solutions on other areas of business management. Whatever the reason, suggestions on e-solutions must either accompany managerial solutions or be made after making sure that the management competence is there.

The Use-Divide article (PDF)
 

The Reality of High Profile Options: Export, Poverty and the “E” Dimension

Given that poverty reduction is described as decreasing the number of the poor by increasing their incomes, it is implicit that the poor should engage in trade. It has been observed that there is no empirical link between “e” and poverty alleviation. There is a link between “e” and trade (export), and between trade and poverty alleviation. This can be explained by describing “e” as a way of doing things and not a thing to do.

 Sustainable trade starts with producing products or services and finding parties to exchange them with ie. building a business. The process depends on an accurate strategy, and the availability of appropriate production, marketing and transaction capabilities. ICTs are relevant to all stages of building a business.

The poor do not have the necessary skills and knowledge to design strategies and build the production, marketing and transaction capabilities, with or without ICTs.

Therefore there is a need for a model that can integrate the poor into the supply chains. Yet in order to achieve this objective, there has to be an entity in the community to undertake trade on an internationally competitive basis. Based on the unique methodology of ITC’s “e-Trade Bridge for SMEs” Programme, to be internationally competitive the entity has to be management ready - acquire, allocate and monitor resources to build production and marketing capabilities; be export ready - able to get orders and fulfill orders and get paid internationally; and be “e” ready to be able to use technology when and where it is needed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the entity. Neither such an entity nor all the capabilities and competencies mentioned here exist in a poor community. Therefore, the first order of business for any poverty alleviation programme should be the creation of such an entity through a consortium of stakeholders based on their expertise to design strategies, build marketing and production capabilities, then introduce ICTs into the appropriate undertakings of the process. This approach would integrate the poor into the trading community and contribute to the generation of sustainable solutions to the problem of poverty.
 See the article (PDF)

ITC has made a significant contribution to addressing the “use-divide” by building the e-Trade Bridge, a unique programme that integrates training components for strengthening the strategic and export competence of managers with modules introducing e-solutions. This approach, “e-nabling SMEs”, links e-trade to the competitiveness of SMEs. To implement its approach, ITC developed a programme to:

1. Train a critical mass of skilled trainers and consultants who understand the application of ICT to the business management processes of SMEs;

2. Build strategic and export competences of SME managers and integrate these with e-competence;

3. Provide practical examples of ICT use by SMEs in different product and service sectors as a way of encouraging other managers to take action.