Technology Must Be The Focus Of World Business

In order to construct an infrastructure to compete in the growing Internet economy, businesses need to build on horizontal, open and standard-based solutions. These solutions should provide unparalleled performance, innovation, flexibility, economies of scale and capability to provide anytime, anywhere computing to a new generation of e-business, said Craig Barrett, president and CEO, Intel Corporations.

"As electronic commerce and bandwidth capacity are increasing exponentially worldwide, it is putting pressure on information technology infrastructure," Barrett pointed out while peaking at a seminar on `Strategies for Global e-business' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) here yesterday.

"The world is seeing an exponential growth in e-business revenues and in Internet traffic. And the key is to keep the computing infrastructure robust for the companies to grow in this field," he said.

 

According to him, global business communities must focus on how technology can bring efficiency to their operations. This all depends on how fast the companies can make the transformation. "The Internet is changing the way business is done. The industry's driving force today is the Internet," Barrett said, while pointing out the benefits companies can reap from technology.

The world must expect an exponential growth in the Net and business conducted on the Net, Barrett. "For example, 30 per cent of the gross domestic product of the US will be on the Net by the next decade," he said. "Though India is a slow starter in this area compared with the US, the country will present a growth that will be worth many billions by the middle of the current decade," he added.

He also predicted a $ 7 trillion Net market place by 2004 worldwide and a large part of this will be from business-to-business transactions. "I believe that the B2B space will be fuelling the growth in the e-business and will throw open new challenges and opportunities to companies. And the key to success is how companies adapt to this change," he said.

The Asian market is expected to account for 14 per cent of this B2B market place and is growing at about 150 per cent per annum. Forecasts show that B2B sales in Asia, excluding Japan, will reach $ 1 trillion in the next five years.

He said, "The race is for Internet leadership in Asia and the country which embraces the Internet the fastest will be the leader in the region."

He outlined the progression of e-business from building a Web presence to creating markets for supply chain management. He also discussed strategies for e-business in the global economy.

"Successful companies will be the ones that convert to 100 per cent e-business by integrating all aspects of their business from internal and external customers; suppliers; partners and affiliates in an e-business environment," he said.

According to him, while designing e-business systems, one needs to balance customers value, operation excellence, rapid deployment and new business opportunities.