The Hindu Business Line : Sow `e' and ye shall reap dividends

DIVIDENDS are old stuff, digital dividends are what businesses want. And important things are happening in the Asia-Pacific region in spite of the hype about dotcom bust, argue David C.Michael and Greg Sutherland in "Asia's Digital Dividends" - on `how Asia-Pacific's corporations can create value from E-business'. The region will add over 150 million Net users in the next four years; overseas buyers are insisting that the exporters use electronic channels; online sales actually doubled in 2001, and in the travel and financial services sectors, consumers are moving online at an `unexpected pace'; over 80 per cent of online sales in the region belong to Asia's large companies; and so on. That's from the blurb, but there is more:

In computer manufacturing, cost savings of 5-10 per cent are forecast, as supply chains are optimised. Historically, global companies attempting to enter Asian markets have faced major barriers in reaching customers and distributing products. Asian companies now face renewed interest from global competitors who see e-business tools as a way to break into Asian markets.

Hong Kong and Singapore have 57 fixed phone lines per 100 inhabitants, while India has three. Singapore and Australia have 57 and 54 PCs, respectively, per 100 inhabitants, while Indonesia and The Philippines have less than one. Mobile phone penetration varies just as greatly, with 68 and 67 mobile phones per 100 inhabitants in Hong Kong and Taiwan, respectively, and fewer than one per 100 in India. By 2004, Taiwan would expand its mobile phone penetration from 68 per cent to 84 per cent, while in India it would increase from 0.3 per cent to 0.6 per cent.

Approximately half of Asian marketplaces are vertically organised, devoted to single-country markets. These are in a particularly precarious position. Since only 22 per cent of Asian marketplaces are industry-sponsored, most single-country verticals have little real power to drive adoption in their markets. Top incumbent competitors generally hold most of the market share and all the power that goes with it.

All companies with significant mobile work forces - such as car and truck fleets, sales forces, repair and maintenance teams, workers in large factories, and so forth - should benefit from the emerging mobile B2B and B2E (business-to-employee) applications.

In the past, airline engineers have spent much of their time searching for information in maintenance manuals and identifying the correct spare parts from catalogues. In one airline, the portal now delivers an online manual and catalogue system that has cut search time by 50 per cent. Employees now work faster, with much less frustration.

Frustrating, if you didn't know the benefits of e-business.

Free fall if you ain't wire-free

The author of "Nokia Revolution", Dan Steinbock has written another book, titled "Wireless Horizon", to chronicle the strategy and competition for leadership in the global wireless economy.Catch a few glimpses of the race in the `worldwide mobile marketplace'.

By 1999, GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) was the dominant cellular standard. The GSM-driven expansion provided the foundation for the explosive growth of Nokia and the Finnish mobile cluster, which soon became known as "Finland's Wireless Valley."

The first milestone in the changing global chessboard was on August 14, 2001, when China overtook the US as the largest cellular phone market.

Driven by 3G horizontalisation, future vertical applications and services are expected to draw together a multitude of wireless technologies in an ad hoc manner. Those elements surround the user through a number of concentric circles, from the personal area network (PAN), which represents the user's closest interaction with the wireless world, to the outmost sphere of the cyberworld furthest from the immediate real world.

CDMA was not the first success of Qualcomm. In 1988, the company introduced OmniTRACS, a satellite-based system that tracked the location of long-haul truckers. Qualcomm's initial expansion built on success in the road transit industry.

In the past, vendors and operators competed through gradual globalisation. Today, players are forced to globalise in order to compete, except for the downstream end of the value chain. New "born global" strategies promise great opportunities; but the dynamics of innovation, and the increasingly high entry barriers virtually ensure that most new start-ups and challengers will be absorbed by the industry leaders.

In the new market wars, what you need is not just agility that counts, but mobility.

Books courtesy: Landmark. www.landmarkonthenet.com

Books2Byte@hotmail.com

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