| E-commerce in Ireland - still a lot to be done |
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| Richard Pike, director of COMIT Gruppe Ireland looks at the reality of e-commerce in Ireland. |
The hype of last year, while having relieved some investors and entrepreneurial corporations of their hard earned cash, has left some flotsam and jetsam in its wake that will prove very useful to the business community as a whole. It has brought the twin areas of telecommunications and security infrastructure to Government attention with the result that we now have increased funds to support broadband connectivity and we have excellent legislation covering the area of digital signatures and contracts. Government still has a lot to do regarding the training arena and should be keen to promote and support any scheme that aims to help Irish business to get up a steep learning curve.
The Government needs to push hard on broadband and training. Unfortunately telecom companies are operating in an environment that requires them to make long term infrastructure investments while reporting to profit starved investors on a quarterly basis. The Government needs to be inventive and find measures that allow infrastructure to be built so that we can all benefit from e-commerce opportunities.
Business in Ireland has a great opportunity to benefit from e-commerce due to the high skills pool and ‘can do’ attitude here, but we must learn the lessons from the last two years and apply them sensibly to our traditional businesses.
Valuable lessons have been learned about how to undertake a successful e-commerce project, namely:
• Don’t bother with too much market research, your customers and suppliers probably don’t know what they want. But do consult with them and trial ideas.
• If possible try out the ideas internally first. Corporate Intranets are the best breeding grounds for e-commerce projects. If it works for your staff it stands a good chance of working for others.
• Make sure it works before opening it up to the world. Have you ever gone to the check out at a supermarket to be told that they cannot take your money at the moment but if you come back tomorrow they may be in a position to do so? No, so don’t let it happen on the Internet.
• Ensure it is tightly linked to current internal processes. Don’t add to your internal confusion by having new processes to link e-commerce and traditional systems this will greatly increase the costs and the operational risks.
• Develop a business case and define clear measurable goals. Think of an e-commerce project the way you would any investment.
• Where possible, create partnerships. The Internet has blurred the boundaries between delivery, content and context so companies are increasingly sticking to what they know best and developing partnerships to offer it to customers in the best manner.
Companies are now starting to link their internal systems to websites and other partners systems. The money and time spent on Enterprise Resource Planning systems will start to realise benefits when these systems are linked to customers, suppliers and service providers like banks. Companies are seeing the benefits of e-procurement through sites like icommerce.ie and e-banking through ‘Business Online’ and others. These systems require deep integration with your internal systems and processes but as a result deliver key benefits in terms of cost savings and better quality information flows. Companies must be willing to spend the time and effort making these links in order to reap the rewards available.
The banks have done a lot to place their products online but at a slow pace. They need to quicken the speed of delivery, expand the offerings by entering into strong partnerships and start to try out new ideas that will add value to their customers. In response, companies need to work with them to better define their requirements and tackle the old chestnuts of security and infrastructure.
The most important lesson to be learned from this particular gold rush is that the ‘Old economy’ and the ‘New economy’ need each other and cannot stand apart. It shows us that while the old guard running corporations does need to be shaken up on a regular basis the revolutionaries shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
The real work in e-commerce begins here! |
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| Article appeared in the May 2001 issue.
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