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Thursday, June 26, 2003
Toral : Lack of trust hurts the industry
By Janette Toral
Digital Filipino
THREE YEARS OLD. This year, the E-Commerce Law or Republic Act 8792 is three years old. Many have asked what has been its impact to the country. A lot actually. Numerous government and private sector initiatives came into play prior to and after the ratification of the law.
What has been disappointing though is the growth of Internet users in the country currently estimated to be at 4.5 million Filipinos. In my discussion with peers in the industry, we all agree that this figure is very conservative versus the country’s actual population of nearly 85 million. If we will be optimistic about it and take the penetration of Internet cafes, access in schools and small enterprises into play, we might have nearly 15 million Internet users already.
As a researcher, my biggest dilemma is to conduct a study in a vertical segment whose players are not keen to trust or cooperate.
Take the case of our outsourcing community. Most of its industry revenue and market size figures and estimates are outdated. It is a common complaint given by investors, especially in the software development sector.
Our only revenue figures on hand were based on 1999 reports. Why is this so? Simple. Industry players are hesitant in sharing information. No one wants to trust.
The same situation with the Internet service or access provider community.
Their lack of cooperation in participating in surveys contributes to why we don’t have a good basis on the real number of Internet users in the country.
It is not enough to say that the sector is hurting with the entry of telecommunication carriers in their market space. It must be backed by numbers in order for these claims to be seriously taken into consideration.
The lack of numbers greatly affects investment coming into the country. Potential locators start by looking at industry situation and figures. Without accurate and up-to-date figures, we will likely lose these potential investors to other countries who not only have great incentives but accurate information on the status of the industries they seek investment in.
It also de-motivates potential local entrepreneurs in this market and its investor community. If industry players can’t share and trust third-party surveys, their respective industry associations should do such reports. Unfortunately, I also heard that there were efforts but unsuccessful in achieving the same.
Knowledge and industry opinion not backed by numbers are of meager and unsatisfactory kind. Worst, it hurts the industry and gives a poor impression about the country’s progress in such area. Take the case of India, which has updated information on its IT industry situation. They were able to do so, for players are cooperating fully as they value the importance of coming up with accurate industry situationers.
Faith, trust and calculated risk have to be balanced with industry, cross-segment and country interest. If we can’t learn to trust and look beyond ourselves, perhaps it’s time that we stopped blaming others for any problems our industry segment has.
(Janette welcomes comments at janette@digitalfilipino.com)
(Janette Toral today begins writing a weekly IT column for Sun.Star Cebu. Janette is dubbed as the mother of the E-Commerce Law. Through her website, http://www.digitalfilipino.com, she was able to encourage Bigfoot to invest in the Philippines, particularly Cebu City.)
(June 26, 2003 issue)
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