Defining E-competence - your first reactions

Dear Colleagues:

John Gillies (ITC) posed a question in this e-forum: What do you think defines e-competency for enterprises and trade promotion organizations?

This question was discussed at length among Executive Forum participants in Montreux, and the answers varied widely. Below we have grouped your initial e-mail responses and comments on "what it takes" to become e-competent.

We encourage your continued comments on this subject.

(Please remember to tell us what institution and country you are from when you send your message, as we still don't have all your registration forms!)

Natalie Domeisen and Prema de Sousa, ITC

E-COMPETENCE VIEW FROM SANTO DOMINGO

From Gloria Coste, Trade Point Santo Domingo, tradepoint@cedopex.gov.do 

E-competence for enterprises and trade promotion organizations will be defined as the ability to access and handle information.

Financial access is also important.

We also support the statement of Ravi Rao (Commonwealth Secretariat) about attracting technology to build production and exports. We are doing our best to enable SMEs by giving them knowledge of how to promote their goods through e-marketing and how to do business in this new platform (e-commerce).

(Moderators' Note: Mr. Rao noted that the key issue is how to attract technology and enable production and export, and that trade support institutions (TSIs) must change their strategies to enable SMEs to acquire minimum e-competency, but more importantly, to go further so that they join digital market places.)

IADB: MEET CUSTOMERS "WHERE THEY ARE" EVEN IF IT IS NOT AT THE CUTTING EDGE

John Dunn Smith, Inter-American Development Bank, JohnDS@iadb.org says:

One of the crucial elements of e-competence is to provide services that match the technological capabilities of your intended customers and end-users.

In the course of studying Brazilian e-commerce last year, I found a serious mismatch between web site design and end-user capabilities. While many promotional and direct sales sites were beautifully and elaborately designed, most end-users in Brazil (even in the ultra-connected United States, for that matter) were unlikely to possess the connections needed to download many (if not most) of the pages within a reasonable amount of time.

This gap between the web site designers' skills/available technology, and the technology available to most end-users highlights what is a frequently neglected area of e-commerce: meeting potential customers where they are, even if that is not on the cutting edge."

A CONTRARY VIEW OF E-COMPETENCE

From Anton James, Marketing Director at Hostopia.com, anton@hostopia.com 

Companies and countries that do not keep abreast with the dynamic revolution of services and expertise are finding themselves left behind.

There are options that companies and countries can easily adopt to compete head-to-head with industry leaders. One such option in the web hosting and e-mail industry is to adapt an outsourced technology that can be customized to a company's needs. This can be much less costly than the alternative, which is for companies to build and develop systems independently.

FINLAND: E-BUSINESS SKILLS FOR COMPANY WEB SITES

From Klaus Arni, Strategy Analysis International, Finland, pcl@personal.eunet.fi, http://www.strategyanalysis.com 

Dear ITC-executive e-forum friends!

As many have said during this e mail forum: E-business is a new opportunity for any SME to become an international player. Many speak about technology problems. In my experience, more important than the use of latest pc-technology is the following:

• Web Sites: First and Foremost, Top Management Strategic Decision

1. Establishing a company's web-site should always be regarded as a strategic company decision, not as a mere information distribution or advertising matter. Each company should consider what it wants to achieve by putting up a web site and then include the necessary dynamic components to the site in order to get the right effect. Establishing a web site can have a major effect on the operations and organization of the company.

• Web sites: Will it bring added value to the client? Will it add value to the business sector at large?

2. Always consider what is the added value to a company's client if it uses the company's web site. Also consider how one's web site fits into the value chain in the particular business sector in question.

A company's web site which is "floating around" without proper anchoring into the whole business logic of the cluster to which it belongs won't have many visitors.

• Evaluate!

3. Each web site must have a follow-up-log of the visiting traffic to the site. Without a follow-up log a site is without any feed back from the most important element - your clients!

These matters are of special importance to small SMEs, especially in developing countries which have scarce resources. Maybe ITC could develop a self-learning programme to be used by trade promotion organizations (TPOs), or maybe SMEs directly, in order to train companies in entering web-business.