Information revolution `a massive opportunity'

FOR Irish business people and entrepreneurs the changes currently underway in the information and communications technology fields are creating massive opportunities says Ms Vivienne Jupp, chairwoman of the Information Society Commission.

What is happening is on the same scale as the Industrial Revolution but without the massive investments that revolution involved.

"You don't have to construct massive buildings, or a railroad," she says. The details of what is required for each particular company have to be worked out by the company concerned. But the challenge to be met can be described in broad terms and examples given of the type of developments required.

"You have to understand we are entering a global marketplace. The restraints of time, distance and location are no longer binding," she says.

As the changes are going to happen anyway the question for each business is not whether it is going to partake or not, but whether it is going to profit from the revolutionary change, or lose out.

In time, and it will only be a matter of years, new information and communication technologies will be as pervasive and as central to how we conduct our business and personal lives as the telephone is now.

An example familiar to everyone of how technology will bring about change is provided by the banks, Ms Jupp says. Similar changes will be required of businesses great or small.

The first step the banks introduced was using new technology to improve their internal processes and the services they provided. The technology was used to close books more quickly, to keep accounts in a better way, and so on.

Any business can introduce technology to bring about similar improvements in efficiency. "It's getting cheaper and cheaper to do and the returns are enormous.

The second step the banks took was to use technology to change the way they delivered their service. ATMs were introduced. "They never changed their old method of delivering the service, you could still walk into the bank. What they did was provide more choice." The ATMs also meant services were available around the clock.

When information technology combines with communications technology, as will be common in a few years' time, then the banks will cater for people who want to bank from at home, using their personal computer, or television. (AIB are already running an Internet banking programme.)

This further element illustrates another key issue for business. The individual at home in Dublin or Letterkenny or Macroom, wishing to buy some financial service, can do so just as easily from a bank in Frankfort as he or she can from an Irish bank which has a branch in the local shopping centre.

The change means foreign banks can compete for business here, but it also means Irish banks can compete for business abroad. "For business the market will be with wherever you can make contact." Geography loses importance and competition becomes global.

Levi jeans can be bought for $33 dollars from US shops on the Internet, around half the price in an Irish shop. "If you are Brown Thomas then its not just the shops on Grafton Street you're competing with. Your customers and your competition will be worldwide."

Those companies with good telecommunications systems and which are familiar with the technology will be the ones able to take advantage of the opportunities." This is as true for individual professionals selling services as it is for companies, Ms Jupp points out.

"Decoupling" is another of the changes which are occurring. Technology ends the need for companies to be in the same place in order to compete it also gets rid of the need for companies to be in the same place in order to work together.

Ms Jupp gives the example of Swatch, the Swiss watch manufacturers. The designing of Swatch watches is now carried out in Italy, a country known for the quality of its work in this area. The designs are then electronically transferred to the location of the manufacturing plant, which is outside both Italy and Switzerland. The Swiss involvement is in the areas of marketing and distribution and such like, areas where they can make use of their traditional contacts and advantage.

"When you look at almost any business you'll find you can break it up like that," says Ms Jupp.

Ireland's equivalent of Italian design could be the provision of "content" for the multimedia products the new technologies are bringing into being. With a young, English speaking population and developed skills in story telling, film and music, Ireland is ideally placed to avail of the opportunities which exist. The Information Society Steering Committee, which Ms Jupp chaired, estimated that 200,000 jobs could be created in this sector alone.

But for every business no matter how large or small, managers need to "look at technology not as just enabling effectiveness and efficiency but as a whole new way of doing things."

The technology issue is not a function to be assigned to a particular manage. "It terms of managing a business it should be part of the agenda of the executive team. You can't detach it. You can have someone who would champion the idea at the beginning, but in the end it needs to be pervasive."

"The returns can be substantial. You set out what it is you want to do, and technology can help you bring it about very quickly." Businesses which fail to make use of what technology offers will be at a competitive disadvantage.