Not only do they have to deal with a mountain of legal, regulatory, social, and political issues, they have to lay down the infrastructure and ensure that there is a demand for their services, said Bregant, one of the speakers in a "Taiwan e-Business Forum" yesterday.
"You have to get an adequate level of demand from households otherwise you will just be an extra layer of the administration," he said.
Citing a potential e-government "headache," Bregant said digital or electronic signatures could only be legally binding if the entire back-office had been re-engineered. "Perhaps it's okay if you are dealing with 1,000 signatures, but what about 30 million or 40 million? You have to secure them and verify them, and of course, you need a system that will enable you to distribute that signature on the Web," he said.
Despite these challenges, e-government projects, like Taiwan's US$78 billion project, are gaining momentum, he said.
In Asia, for instance, e-government initiatives were being used by countries to attract technology investments, according to Hewlett-Packard. The IT giant helped Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand build portals that boosted their respective government's efficiency, spurred on online transactions, and improved their competitiveness as a whole.
In an earlier interview, Hewlett-Packard General Manager Joseph Fong cited three reasons why governments needed to utilize the power of the Internet.
"First, people have elevated expectations in terms of what the government is providing them. Second, governments are required to do more in terms of national security and public safety after the September 11 terror attacks on the U.S. Third, e-government makes a country more competitive," he explained. "The government plays a very important part in enabling an e-government. It should lead it."
In France, Bregant said the government virtually brought the Internet to households, quickly building a critical mass for an e-marketplace. Even small and medium-sized companies - an escargot or snail farmer even took his business online, said Bregant - were also aggressively expanding their businesses via the Internet.
Jonas Bygdeson, head of eMarket Services of the Swedish Trade Council, related similar examples in his country. A 35-member company that had no previous export records was able to get customers from Denmark, Norway, and Finland via an electronic marketplace.
Bregant however noted that a company must transform or re-engineer itself to become an e-business.
Getting extra orders was fine, he said, but "if they want to do it seriously, you have to do more."
Quelle: eTaiwan News
