The lively debate that follows highlighted a number of problems and questions to tackle:

·         How to attract a critical mass of users?

·         How to increase the number of transactions?

·         How to create trust?

·         Should the government be an 'implementer' or an enabler?

·         What activities and services can governments provide?

·         Who should motivate, who should provide leadership or vision, to the government and business community?

·         What is the role of international organizations?

Constraints and barriers

Answers came in number over the next three days but some of the immediate responses highlighted market constraints and barriers to access for developing countries in e-commerce: lack of technological infrastructure, lack of skilled personnel, lack of resources, and lack of an e-literate culture.

A 24 x 7 culture

Dorothy Riddle, CMC, Service-Growth Consultants, Vancouver, Canada, provided a first attempt to list answers to the three main questions for the session:

"How is e-business changing markets? Consumer expectations are changing. They want 24 x 7 access.

Why do e-commerce? That’s like asking: are you exporting? i.e. do you want to do business outside your community?

But opening a Website is like opening another office, with all its costs. It is not necessarily the best way to digitally export or participate in the digital economy.

What investment do firms have to make to compete? Outsourcing has now become very very inexpensive. There are intermediaries who will manage your online presence for free. Partnerships are a growing trend. Electronic registers through industry portals, particularly for services, can be a real aid, even indispensable.”

Internet trading exchanges and buyer consortia

Many big trading exchange ventures were announced at the beginning of this year. However, very few have come into operation and start to trade.

Chris Phillips of CommerceOne noted that implementing the technology solution behind a trading exchange accounts for only about 20% of the cost and about 25% of the time and effort of establishing a viable operation. The bulk of the work to be done relates to the alignment of business processes, back office systems integration, establishing bid comparison criteria and training users, both buyers and suppliers. He added that different sites employ different bidding and bid evaluation criteria. The new processes can take some time for users to master. This is an area in which developing country trade promotion institutions could usefully provide training.

The Internet trading exchange business model is a completely new service package in international commerce built to satisfy the needs of buyers, suppliers and networked trade facilitators.

To E or not to E?

Vadim Levitin made the point that business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce is expanding so rapidly that exporting enterprises risk going out of business unless they understand how to benefit from the new technology. Application service providers are becoming more common and these technology service companies should be able to help businesses in developing countries overcome their shortcoming in e-literacy and to considerably reduce the capital investment required.

What are the attainable benefits? Answer: 50% savings on transaction costs and 30% reductions in lead times are quite common.

Fear of the unknown

Hal Loevy of SGSonSite stated that his company's research has shown that although most companies are optimistic about the growth of online trading, many express concerns about the "fear of the unknown". Building trust between the supplier and the customer separated by long distances is one of the key challenges for e-marketplaces to overcome.

Buyers need to be assured that suppliers have the capacity to deliver on their promises and suppliers want to be confident that buyers can pay.

SME exchanges

José Soriano of Red Cientifca Peruana said that Internet trading exchanges are not just the domain of big multinational companies but have achieved success at the SME-level, too, particularly in Latin America, India and Africa.

Outsourcing

To overcome problems with direct access to the Internet it was suggested that companies can use intermediaries, such as cybercafés, community centres, interest-grouped portals, online registers maintained by trade promotion organizations or Chambers of Commerce. There was nothing to stop a company hosting its website in another country. Firms could also outsource their technology needs to reduce costs.

Participants pointed that that there were alternative means of access to the Internet apart from a computer and modem, such as voice-based services and television set-top boxes.

Invest in skills and training

However, many participants highlighted the importance of bringing local people up to speed on e-commerce. This means investing in skills and training. Egypt had even trained popular media to promote awareness of e-commerce technology. Malta has been using its TPOs to assist companies with their online presence.

E-government and distance education could also familiarize the general population in using technology. Chinese companies use their large sales force to train potential users in new technological and business processes.

Concepts and ideas

Several concepts and ideas for strategy makers came out of this wide-ranging session:

·         Provide companies with value-added services (logistics, insurance, financial services, customs documentation etc)

·         Companies should start small, concentrate on core competences and build on them.

·         Develop South-South e-commerce relations.