"Priority shall be granted"

Many may think it anxiety, science fiction and falsity to listen to “new economy” experts who are warning that companies will hardly stay afloat on the market unless they move into electronic commerce.

Rubbish! – some will say. These Internet firms are blowing things out of proportion just to keep selling. But take a look at the revolution – unfortunately, this is the only word, albeit worn-out, to describe the phenomenon – that has been going in the last decade, and there is no exaggeration.

Ten years ago, few people in Romania had ever seen a fax machine. Now, four- or five-year-olds, those lucky enough to be born in a home with a computer, are using it – to play games, for now – much better than their parents. Around the world, this year, products and services were sold on the Net that beat Romania’s GDP seven times over.

The habit of accepting electronic business as a permanent subject to watch and consider in business plans will turn in the next decade into a thick sieve that will sort out good business and good managers.

But there is a resistance to accepting this reality. In part, it stems from the “conservatory” routines rooted in pre-1989 exertions, when it made no difference how new or outdated the technology was, as long as the triumphant statistics kept climbing. Where this behaviour got us is obvious even today.

On the other hand, many Romanian managers are rather concerned about hanging on, economically speaking, for another day or another month, for tax reasons or reasons of the vicious business environment we will not comment here. Where, then, do they come up with energy for e-business, which calls for a considerable effort to inform and adapt oneself, when it’s not a pressing need today?

In the transition to a new form of economic civilisation, the state plays a major role. In terms of budget investments, there is little strain on it.

Practically, no money whatsoever is requested of the state, market analysts note. Information technology companies display a different dynamism altogether, they move fast to make money, because this business is fast.

Therefore, the bulk of investments here comes from private pockets. On one condition: the state must create the laws and facilities to ensure that these investments turn out to be profitable in the end.

But do the authorities know what to do, have they established priorities and reasonable terms, do they “feel” the great economic challenge we are facing?

An incident at a recent international conference on the future of electronic commerce in Romania and East Europe gave reason for scepticism. In the opening sequence, the floor was given to many personalities, including the Trade and Industry minister, Radu Berceanu.

He obviously came down with a speech written by his staff, probably the ministry’s IT people. Any conference, by definition, has speeches full of platitudes, apathetic and stuffy.

But the speech delivered by minister Berceanu revealed how superficial and amateurish state officials in Romania are about the new scenery of 21st century business. In the desire to illustrate the Trade Ministry’s interest for e-commerce, the minister speaks of plans to create a website of the institution.

A few minutes later, under the chapter “priority shall be granted to the following actions,” the second most important entry is again the proposed website of the Ministry.

Towards the end of the address, other priorities include “training abroad for trade representatives of the Ministry of Industries and Trade in the utilisation of the Internet and electronic mail.” So what? – some will ask.

To create a web page, in its minimal form, so as to provide some information – which may be essential in establishing business contacts – is now child’s play. Just look at the scores of teenagers sporting personal sites on the Web.

With the ministry in question still wondering about how to create this elementary business card, the website, nothing else needs to be said of how prepared authorities are to understand the world in which some are already living and where we say we are going.