Below are reactions to the Executive Forum reports related to "Creating the Right National Environment".

Concerning public sector leadership, governments of developing countries have a greater challenge, one that goes beyond e-facilitation to building trust and critical mass.

Governments face the challenge of how to restructure labour- intensive procedures which use excessive time and involve countless paper forms and seals of approval. In the last three decades, these procedures have fallen into the hands and direct control of government employees, some of whom are corrupt.

For many SMEs from developing countries, this situation is the major constraint against the establishment of e-commerce. It will be counterproductive to spend time and effort on education and capital, knowing that slow customs procedures and some corrupt practices work against the speed of light of modern electronics communications.

National environment factors have been adequately addressed by the Executive Forum, but one other important factor which is relevant to developing countries is the language of the country and the lack of knowledge of international languages, particularly English. English is needed to obtain the full benefits of the Internet and also to acquire "e-competency." Sri Lanka has identified this problem and introduced English as a subject even in the lower grades. In Colombo and the big towns, the average person has a good knowledge of English, but in the provinces this problem will prevail. I am sure this issue will be common to countries neighbouring my own, such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and even Nepal.

Private sector innovation can be encouraged by creating a national climate where failure is seen as an essential ingredient in the learning process.

None of us know all the answers. We can be sure that nothing will happen if a 'blame culture' develops which is focused on fear of failure. We must learn to celebrate (and learn from) failure, as a means to improving our understanding of the potential of the new technologies. We will then start to create a learning environment in which opportunities can be recognized and developed at the necessary speed to gain competitive advantage for the country concerned.

First of all, I want to thank you very much for inviting me to participate because you were quickly able to compile a lot of interesting information. I sat down and read through your e-mails to gather valuable information.

We have the tools to develop and implement e-commerce, and we also have a wide range of software systems already working to chose from; however, there are local problems in each country that need to be solved and here is a short list of them:

• Security. A secure universal payment method is key to making e-commerce a viable proposition. We are not close to solving this issue yet. SET is a good proposition; but to implement Secure Electronic Transaction is very expensive and complicated for developing countries. In Uruguay, we don´t have a way to accept online payments, not even using credit cards, since a Uruguayan can buy a book from amazon.com, but cannot buy it from a local provider unless he/she signs the voucher in person.

• Legal Framework. In most cases laws are not there, so countries must go through the slow and painful process of creating and approving the laws that will protect these transactions.

We don´t have a legal frame to protect the merchant nor the client for any fraudulent e-commerce transactions.

• Telecommunications. In several countries this is an important problem, because they do not have Internet access, it is slow, or is too expensive. We have a high percentage of Internet access in Uruguay (10%), and there is a project developed by ANTEL (national telecommunications body) to at least double this number in one year, so telecommunications is not a barrier for e-commerce. Although the bandwidth is slow, we can conduct many basic business activities (but not teleconferencing).

• Education and Awareness. Most people need to be educated to trust, understand and see the terrific advantages that e-commerce will provide them. Because of the security and legal issues mentioned above, educating business executives to use and trust e-commerce is not an easy task.

Uruguay is making great efforts from the government as well as the private sector to overcome some of these limitations; however, we still have a long way to go.

We in the private sector are also pushing hard through Chamber of Commerce, Camara Uruguaya de Software and other organizations.

Espuelas CEO of Starmedia, Vivo CEO of El Sitio, Waldemar Fernandez with his Web Farms, Saavedra CEO Uruguay.com are some successful examples of Uruguayans who are developing the infrastructure for e-commerce. Unfortunately, they are doing it in USA or other countries, not here.

As a participant in the Executive Forum, I found the encounter was highly fruitful, even though it was virtually impossible to reach common conclusions due to the high number of participants and the diversity of topics covered.

At the end of the event, I had the impression that a few die-hard myths still remained alive. For this reason I have summarised myths and their corresponding truths:

There is a lack of awareness regarding the potential of the Internet. Reality 1: In most countries (including developing ones), there is too much awareness about the Internet, but the messages may not be accurate. Unfortunately, most information related to the Internet is directly or indirectly controlled by powerful Internet-product vendors.

Besides, most newspapers do not have enough Internet specialists; therefore, they just reproduce promotional messages prepared by the aforementioned vendors.

Western (US) business models are not applicable in developing countries.

Reality 2: There is no such thing as a western or US model. There are many very different Internet companies and applications in the western world. Many of them are in pretty bad shape and even doomed to fail. However, there are also brilliant models in the western world. Most of them are completely unknown since profitable Internet companies are rarely listed in stock exchanges (either because they have enough money on their own or because their activities are too far-fetched to be easily understandable by most investors). At any rate, the point is not to copy business models but to devise new models suited to particular situations while being inspired by many successful examples regardless of their origin.

Using the Internet, it is easy to gain worldwide visibility and to sell one's products anywhere in the world.

Reality 3: More often than not, it is very difficult to sell anything through a network of cold and faceless computers. The astronomical losses of most Internet companies trying to sell online corroborate this statement. While the Internet is rarely a good tool to sell, it is a marvelous tool to take orders sold offline and to deal with these orders very efficiently. In other words, it is much easier to use the Net to reduce costs than to increase revenues.

There is an urgent need to transfer e-competency from the developed world to the developing world.

Reality 4: As far as the technical part of the Internet is concerned, competency is evenly spread in most countries. Why should a 25-year old Mexican who spent 18 hours a day over the last five years writing Internet-related computer programs be any less competent than his American counterparts? Access to technical competency is virtually free and most universities even in developing countries have dedicated accesses to the Net. As far as eBusiness is concerned, this competency seems to be equally poor in developing countries and in developed countries, primarily because most Internet companies are run by technology freaks unaware of the business dimensions of their venture. The recent serial bankruptcies of large Internet companies corroborate this statement.

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) applications are difficult and rarely profitable while Business-to-Business (B2B) applications such as marketplaces are much easier.

Reality 5: Indirectly, there is some level of truth in this statement. However, key success factors are not whether an application is B2B or B2C but whether it is easy of not to acquire new clients or players. In this regard, many marketplaces are doomed to fail because they need far too much money to rope in thousands of potential suppliers or buyers to reach the critical mass they need. Besides, most e-marketplaces are per se monopolistic and only a few of them per industry can thrive.

Jeanne Gerritsen, Consultant, Michigan Small Business Development Center (jeannemg@misbdc.wayne.edu)

The private sector in a market economy will continue to innovate, whether or not government helps or hinders the adoption of the innovation. Today the innovations in the "e-" world are so rapid that it is difficult for even those in the "e-" world to keep up with them. Many in the private sector say that government should just get out of the way. Others realize that the private sector and the public sector need each other in order, to provide checks and balances, in order to affect the greatest progress.

1) the natural, physical environment which may or may not be conducive to rapid improvements and

2) those which are imposed by human beings within and without government.

The private sector (individually by company or collectively by their associations) can be more patient and work with people and institutions that don't "see it" right now; be willing to educate individuals and groups--users, governments, potential employees; be willing to listen to fears and concerns and make the effort to help people overcome them; be willing to defer short term gain and take the "long view;" understand that culture and religion and government often have strong linkages, and that involvement with one has an affect on the others; be willing to invest in overcoming obstacles to adopting the change and not just in the innovation itself; and be trustworthy and dependable.

The public sector, on all local, regional, international levels, can realize that constraints are real constraints, are stopping points, and not ultimately rewarding; remove institutional, legal, habitual and personal obstacles to innovation and change (the self-examination that brings to light these obstacles may be painful, but it would also be revealing and rewarding); recognize that even some geophysical obstacles can be overcome; be open to change, adaption, and adoption; facilitate the change - help pave the way; help ease the fears and concerns of people and institutions; be even handed in negotiations and decisions; and be trustworthy and dependable.