Commentary on 'Draft National Policy on Electronic Business For Trinidad and Tobago'

Posted July 21st, 2008 by Taran

The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society sent myself and others a message on Facebook to aggregate comments on the Draft National Policy on Electronic Business For Trinidad and Tobago - noting, for example, that the definitions of eCommerce and eBusiness are perhaps misrepresentative within the document (PDF, 640K):

3 Definitions of e-Business and e-Commerce
e-Commerce in its purest sense is defined as:

‘All electronically mediated information exchanges between an organization and
its external stakeholders’

Thus a company which posts information on a brochure website is not engaging in ecommerce.
However a company which accepts requests for additional information
about specific products and provides that information interactively via their website
is engaging in e-commerce. Financial information of course is included in this
definition but the concept is broader than the realm of strictly finance.

e-Business may be defines as:

‘All electronically mediated information exchanges, both within an organization
and with external stakeholders supporting the range of business processes’

e-Business is said to occur when a business has fully integrated ICTs into its
operations, both internally and with external stakeholders; potentially redesigning its
business processes or even reinventing its business model. Thus, an organisation can
be engaging in e-commerce, through its ability to electronically interact with its
customers on-line, but it may not be an e-business because it has not implemented
the back-office functions and business processes which electronically and
organisationally support that interaction.

eCommerce is about transactions. eBusiness is the use of ICT to the ends of business which is not necessarily directly related to finance. I don't see why they tried to water it down so much; diluting the definitions to a point where they seem to have just about everything to do with the internet seems odd and allowing for future potential waste. The definitions need to be more finite. Period.

I'll have to spend some more time thinking about the document. It is a draft, after all - but I'll give it a good going over, then add my comments to the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society Wiki.