Where are you in the e-world?

When Ironbridge was in full swing, do you think its inhabitants knew they were living through the industrial revolution? Or when Ford sold the first few of his Model Ts, did the buyers know they were at the start of a Kondratiev wave?

I feel so aware that I am living in the midst of an industrial wave. I've had my own computer and email since December 1994 and I know how my email address book has grown and grown over the years as more clients, friends and family have signed up for internet services. On a visit to New York in 1997, I noticed how web site addresses were appearing everywhere - every advertisement in newspapers, magazines, on buses or commercial vehicles carried a web site. The same is happening in the UK now.

It is difficult to keep up with figures for how the internet is growing and at what pace. At the end of February, I attended a Business Day sponsored by various government bodies and heard an excellent talk from IBM manager, Drew Crawford. In terms of growth of commerce on the internet, he said £470m has been spent on internet purchases in the UK in the last six months and that figure is set to soar.

Mr Crawford stated there were five stages companies generally moved through on their journey to the e-world:

Step One Access the web
Step Two Publish some static information on a web site
Step Three Provide access to business data via the web
Step Four Enable web-based transactions to take place
Step Five Use the web experience to change your business (reverse engineering).

The meeting was extremely well attended and almost completely by representatives of small businesses. Just about everyone in the room had managed to get to step one; some were at two and three; very few were at four and five.

An interesting stage in the proceedings came when the facilitator of the event said that perhaps the web wasn't right for everyone, such as, perhaps, the corner shop. However, the winner of Parcel Force's Small Business of the Year was a photographer who was present at the event and happily started off his talk by reeling off half a dozen ways in which a web site could help the business of a local shopkeeper. If you'd like to visit his site it is www.spikephoto.com.

Business Advisers at the Coventry Chamber are working hard and training hard to keep up with the pace of change and the Chamber is involved with CW2000, which has been featured in the Enterprise newspaper. If you would like to discuss where you are located currently in the e-world and how to move on, please ring the Chamber and ask to speak to one of the Business Advisers. If you would like to know more about CW2000, please ring the Chamber number for CW2000 Gateway and ask for an information pack.

- Mon Aug 19 08:34:36 20020