Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
survey conducted late in 1999 by the Singapore
IT Federation, while 91 per cent of the top 1,000
companies already had Internet access, only 4
per cent of the 92,000 SMEs were conducting e-
commerce (Raj, 2000, p.7). Sixty-six per cent of
SMEs with sales below $1 million cited lack of
in-house IT skills and infrastructure, inadequate
knowledge of e-commerce, and low budgets as
barriers to implementing e-commerce (Koh, 2000,
p.14). As such, the Economic Development Board
(EDB) will assist businesses in their e-commerce
strategy by supporting up to 50 per cent of their
external consultants' costs in formulating a busi-
ness plan or business collaboration venture, con-
ducting feasibility studies, or providing assistance
in implementation, up to a maximum limit of
S$250,000 (Lee, 2000, p.71). The government also
unveiled a three-year, $11.7 million plan to prod
the city's growing logistics industry into doing
more with the Internet. Singapore's transport and
logistics industry contributed more than 7 percent
to gross domestic product last year (Bangsberg,
2000, p.10).
The Singapore government's GeBIZ initative
is an attempt to create a one-stop, round-the-clock
centre for the government's business dealings. The
first phase was launched in April 2000. GeBIZ
enables the financial systems of ministries and
the procurement applications to work together.
Trading partners can find invitations to tender
and purchase orders on the site. Suppliers can
also submit invoices, check payment status, post
their catalogues and bid for contracts. Currently,
purchases are capped at S$30,000 (US$17,341),
but the Ministry of Finance estimates that once
new payment and security systems are introduced,
80% of all government procurement will transfer
to GeBIZ. In 2005, some 41,000 small-value pur-
chases worth some $36 million were transacted
over GeBiz (Business Times, 2006). As with other
online B2B trading networks, the benefits come in
the form of more competitive bidding, easy access
to suppliers round the world, time saved by online
processing of orders, lower stocks and automated
collection of high-quality data (Economist, 2000).
South Korea
The South Korean Government has taken a
strongly proactive approach to promoting an
information society for all of its people, busi-
nesses and industries. In all of its endeavors, the
government's overarching objective has been to
utilize ICT to enhance the quality of life in Korea.
Korea's focus on promoting information and
communication technologies began in the mid-
1990s, with the establishment of the Ministry of
Information and Communication (MIC) in 1994,
and the announcement of its overall broadband
strategy, the Korea Information Infrastructure
(KII) in 1995. Korea's broadband market is cur-
rently an open market, free of regulation and
controls over licensing and pricing. Its incumbent
telecom provider, Korea Telecom, has been com-
pletely privatized as of May 2002 (Lee, 2002).
One aim of the KII initiative was to stimulate
private sector investment and competition in the
broadband market, by lowering the regulatory
barriers to entry. A second aspect of the initiative
was for the Government to provide a high-speed
network that would serve as a public backbone,
providing broadband services to 30,000 govern-
ment and non-profit organizations, as well as to
research institutes, and to around 10,000 schools.
The government had another ambitious goal: to
provide high-speed internet to every household
in Korea. Not only has this goal nearly become
reality, but the government's targeted internet
speed (threshold) is continually revised upward:
the current target is to provide 50-100 Mbps to all
homes by the end of 2010 (Lee, 2002).
The Korean Government is continually revis-
ing its strategies, due in part to rapid changes in
technological innovation and market demands
(Lee and Chan-Olmsted, 2004), and putting forth
new initiatives in its wide-ranging telecommu-
nications efforts. In December of 2002, Korea
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