Pacific Perspective
Pacific Perspective
Last month, the 6.5 billion-person world rolled out its billionth personal computer. And, with the exception of a few isolated countries, telecommunications costs have plummeted. Calling China from the United States, for example, is now slightly above 4 cents a minute, compared to $1.70 a decade ago. Cooperation an
Asia e-business openingThe improvements of communication infrastructure around the world, and more so in the Asia-Pacific region, have finally convinced leading Asian businesses and government officials to acknowledge that e-commerce is no longer just an experiment, but an unavoidable factor in the success or failure of their national economies.
Despite the spectacular adoption of mobile telephones and personal computers, the search for an e-commerce "killer application" remains elusive for most Asian businesses. Asia has yet to score a success similar to that of Federal Express with its real-time tracking technology, or Classmates.com with its innovative business model, let alone the now-classic Amazon.com.
Indeed, there are a number of major areas of uncertainty that still cloud the climate of e-commerce in the Orient. The relevance and evidence of productivity and return on IT investment have yet to be proved. Changing social needs and priorities are in the making in developing economies. With unpredictable outcomes, support for e-commerce is not in the governments' top agenda. And, in the context of regional cooperation in Asia, it is not clear how to define the roles and functions of key players -- such as governments, non-governmental organizations, and private sectors -- in using technology to promote economic prosperity and social welfare. Last, but not least, the general economic and business conditions worldwide remain precarious, spooking needed investors.
Perhaps Asia's best is to use information technology to foster regional cooperation.
Refocusing on regional e-commerce will not eliminate the challenges. On the contrary, e-commerce issues like lack of transaction security, weakness of market research, inappropriate technical support, insufficient funding, inadequate infrastructure, costly bandwidth access and unclear business laws are more prevalent in Asia. Nonetheless, the cultural, social and economic disparities seem to be better understood regionally. And the notion of regional cross-border Internet-based cooperation seems to be, psychologically and politically, more practical than attempting to connect to the entire world.
The most immediately important portion of e-commerce in Asia is not "pure" e-commerce, that is selling digital goods with digital delivery and digital money. Physical -- not digital -- goods and services remain Asia's most important trade. Since overhead costs related to selling physical goods are high; focusing on regional e-markets would help reduce these costs and provide a chance for e-commerce to find its raison d'etre.
Tung Bui is Matson Navigation Co. Distinguished
Professor of Global Business at the University
of Hawaii at Manoa. He can be reached
at tbui@cba.hawaii.edu.