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Thursday, February 02, 2006
Toral: Challenges in running a telecenter as a business
By Janette Toral
Digital Filipino
The pressure of bringing information and communications technology (ICT) to the grassroots triggered the establishment of telecenters or community e-centers (CECs) in rural areas of various developing countries. Telecenters are either government, private or non-government organizations (NGOs) that seek to provide Internet facilities where citizens can access the Interneta at no or minimal cost.
Telecenters offer various value-added services such as consultancy or assistance in using the Internet and training on the use of ICT. Some also offer one-stop-shop services, such as telephone, fax, copier, Internet services, computer rental, scanning, printing, courier and desktop publishing, among others.
There are many concerns and challenges in running a telecenter that project planners should learn from and take note of. These include:
Duplication. There are many telecenter efforts today by the academe, non-government organizations and government. Be sure to check first the existence of these services. If there’s any, find areas where you can collaborate to complement your respective concerns. Don’t build one from scratch especially when resources are very limited.
Unfair competition. Be careful in setting up telecenters in areas where there are commercial providers and end up competing with them, resulting in market disruption. This is especially true for government-funded efforts.
Government is the party least expected to compete with the private sector.
Return on investment and success metrics. Whether it is for public service or profit, return on investment and success metrics are important in determining the effectiveness of telecenters. Go for metrics that are highly relevant. For business development centers, this can be in the form of business generated rather than just number of people trained. Having bottomline-driven metrics allows us to focus on what matters most all the time.
Quality of personnel. Do not allow your telecenter to be run by people who only learned about the technologies a week or month prior to the target opening of the facility. The role of a telecenter head requires expertise in business and ICT. If there’s no one with such qualifications, make sure that the people you hire have adequate on-the-job training exposure.
Your clients should be able to feel that they can trust and have confidence in the person who is supposed to help them. For NGOs, having experienced members as mentors can help in this regard too.
Responsible and sensitive spending. Telecenter investments must be properly rationalized. For every amount you spend, ensure that the returns are clearly identified. Otherwise, you’ll be like other telecenters where the money allotted was spent for other purposes, distorting the accounting of the project itself.
There is always an end. As the popular quote goes, “everything that has a beginning, has an end.” I believe the same is true for telecenters. Leaders must recognize that as ICT becomes more pervasive, more and more stakeholders will gain access to it and own it. Our goal should be to build enough confidence for them to be interested in investing in ICT and own it.
As private sector competition is uncontrollable, cooperatives, NGOs and government-initiated telecenters should put in mind that their telecenters will be phased out as well. While this is not popular thinking, it is a hard reality that must be kept in mind. With enough metrics and a solid plan in place, despite having an end, a telecenter or business development center has much to accomplish.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 2, 2006 issue)
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