Paris, 24 July 1998 -
The Internet is the great leveller. As George Orwell wrote: "All animals
are equal, but some are more equal than others." The same can be said of
web sites. Anybody can have one and the web pages of the mightiest corporations
are no more accessible than Joe’s Eatery.
Successful marketing on the web depends on a number
of factors. Surfers – the potential customers or clients – need to
know what they are looking for and where to look. The right prompts have to
be fed to the search engines. Intelligent site architecture and imaginative
design are important too.
Still, there is no physical reason why the small
family business with a well-made product that people want should not reach out
to the world via the Internet. There are no boundaries and only minimal cost
constraints.
Companies can do business with partners at the
far corners of the earth as easily as they deal with the supplier or customer
at the other end of town. As The Economist remarked in a special e-commerce
survey: "Place a store on the Internet anywhere and it is, in effect, everywhere."
Any regular reader of the vast outpouring of articles
on e-commerce and the Internet’s future as a medium for buying and selling
will discern a clear trend –- doubts are fading. More and more articles
give chapter and verse to actual sales performance and highly respectable authorities
are predicting vigorous growth in commerce over the Internet.
A few weeks ago, Charle
s Schwab, the largest US
retail stockbroker, announced that more than half of its total trading volume
is carried out on-line. Cisco Sytems is reported to be selling $1 billion worth
of products yearly from its web site. Price Waterhouse is estimating that by
2002 the value of goods and services traded on the web will be $343 billion.
The International Chamber of Commerce, as the world’s
premier business organization, is determined to do everything within its power
and resources to make e-commerce succeed. The organization is active in two
areas: drawing up voluntary rules for the electronic age and helping companies
to use the web to do business.
These two objectives complement each other, for
e-commerce needs integrity, order and the predictability that comes from clear
rules of the game if it is to meet its full potential. They fit well with ICC’s
efforts to assist up-and-coming businesses all over the world that are looking
to expand.
In the emerging economies and the developing world,
their success is crucial to spreading the benefits of globalization to the populations
that have too long been condemned to poverty. It is they who are the biggest
source of job creation and of material progress at the grassroots of national
economies.
As a recent study by the United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) asserts: "A country’s development
and international competitiveness are closely linked to the capabilities of
its small and medium-sized enterprise sector." As we move into the 21st
century, these companies must be able to exploit e-commerce to the full in order
to be competitive on world markets.
It may sound a tall order, but the means are at
hand. Through its International Bureau of Chambers of Commerce (IBCC), ICC is
an active consortium* partner in the World Chambers Network(WCN), an expanded
on-line service to be launched in October that gives companies of every size
a place where they can command attention in the infinite reaches of cyberspace.
WCN will foster comprehensive exchange of business
information, including technology, products, services, markets and resources.
It will provide an electronic business network that links companies to customers
anywhere in the world. It has state-of-the-art security features for risk-free
on-line trading.
By using WCN, a small or medium-sized company will
be able to do business globally as quickly, efficiently and inexpensively as
large multinationals. The service mobilizes the worldwide network of chambers
of commerce.
It will enable chambers throughout the world to
continue in the electronic age their traditional centuries-old mission of supporting
their members in their daily business activities. That means providing solid
market intelligence, opening up contacts to new customers and suppliers and
developing business opportunities.
WCN’s pilot opportunity service has already
proved its worth; a company that sells ergonomic pens opened business contacts
with one of the largest office supply chains in the United States. A Swedish
dental equipment importer is now doing business with China. Nothing is too esoteric
to be traded – like the thermo cushions for use in small boats or picnics
whose manufacturer found an agent in the Netherlands.
WCN in
cludes these features for its members:
- Information. Access to the facts, figures and
tools they need to trade internationally;
- The WCN E-Club. Brings new sophistication to
direct marketing. Any service or request that Club members list is e-mailed
directly to other members that fit their profiles;
- The Global Business eXchange. WCN members list
business opportunities on a database with an easy-to-operate search facility;
- Index of Chambers of Commerce. The Internet’s
most complete registry of chambers. Offers hyperlinks to their web sites;
- Trade Resources Library. Links to on-line information
sources such as world business reports, bank rates, customs documentation
and country-by-country trade and regulatory data.
As the World Chambers Network opens up for
business, ICC experts are hard at work on the voluntary rules that will be the
surest way of making e-commerce a viable, mainstream means of doing business.
At the same time, ICC seeks to persuade governments that their role in regulating
the Internet should not go beyond establishing an internationally consistent
legislative and institutional framework that leaves companies free to innovate
and create trust in the electronic medium.
ICC has already introduced rules for ensuring trustworthy
digital transactions and guidelines for ethical advertising on the Internet.
It is about to publish model contract clauses that deal with one of the most
difficult issues for on-line business relationships, that of privacy protection.
These and other ICC voluntary instruments that
are still in the pipeline will be presented to the ministerial conference of
the OECD in Ottawa in October entitled "The Borderless World."
*Other Consortium members are: Trade Information
Network of the UN/G77 Conference of Chambers of Commerce, The Paris Chamber
of Commerce and Industry, the International Business Network for World Commerce
and Industry Ltd. (IBNET).
International
Bureau of Chambers of Commerce(IBCC)