Strategic and Technological Management of e-Business:  Meeting the Challenge

Does meeting the challenge of e-Business and the major change it entails have an impact on the strategic and technological management of sector entities and organizations?  Our answer is an unqualified “yes.”  Today’s formative and influential environment requires, among other things, self-questioning and, more importantly, the provision of answers by the sector as a whole, mindful that, regardless of the realistically downsized growth expectations of the “.coms,” e-Business is expanding steadily and continuously.  The Internet has made an evident and genuine contribution to the efficiency and low cost of the twin processes of centralized management and distributed operation. 

In assessing the general feeling in the Latin American and Caribbean telecommunication sector, the Center of Excellence for the Americas Region has designed, with the participation of three of its Nodes, a seminar-workshop that addresses the challenge of launching an online business or of migrating, through the use of e-Business solutions, products and services for customer reference or use.

Today, government entities must rethink their regulations, broaden their perspectives, keep well abreast of changes and, as ever, make efforts through successful teamwork with universities and organizations in order to find “in time” solutions to the demands of the environment with a view to sector advancement; as well as solutions so that businesses that require full or partial use of the Internet in their design or management achieve such use – not only in terms of management or technology, but also of the regulatory approach they require.

The Center of Excellence for the Americas Region realizes the urgency and importance of providing the leaders of Administrations and telecommunication companies in the region with an comprehensive program including technology- and management-related topics that allows those leaders to gain an awareness of, analyze, understand, and apply the fundamental concepts of all aspects of the Internet-based “telecommunication business” (e-Business), so that what they learn equips them to become the force driving the development of their Administrations, countries and, of course, the region.

Therefore, modernization of countries through a cutting edge sector such as telecommunications makes a major contribution in Latin America and the Caribbean, as this ensures that the “digital divide” separating us from the developing countries shrinks more each day.

In providing an academic response to the fundamental topics of e-Business technological management, we consider that participants may individually gain from two essential benefits:  from a purely human standpoint: by profiting from multicultural experience; and, from the technical and management standpoint, from multipurpose and multidisciplinary instruction, all as part of a comprehensive program that addresses perceived needs and expectations by providing theoretical and practical content.

It is hoped that in the fascinating and stimulating environment of Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), participants will gain an awareness of today’s market and its expectations for e-Business, examine its competitive advantages, understand how to formulate and design a project and how to evaluate technological tools required for start-up, recognize the importance of establishing and leading working groups, gain an awareness of existing laws and regulations in the different countries and of the importance of the legal aspects of the process, take account of the need for adequate cybersecurity, and come to recognize that all aspects mentioned are essential to achieve high quality projects.

It is also hoped that students will learn about the opportunities afforded by Internet technology as the fundamental basis of e-Business in the new “way of doing business” owing to the importance of telecommunications to e-Business support systems and the entire technological process supporting marketing, sales, ordering, payment, post-sales support and, in general, “service to the virtual customer” in the regions’ Administrations and telecommunication companies.

For all these reasons, we hope that, through the well-balanced content offered, at the end of the experience, those with us from the outset will be able to identify and differentiate between concepts such as  “e-commerce” and “e-business,” review all topics of interest to them, and incorporate into their personal experience the response to the challenge we have set ourselves.

We in the Center of Excellence for the Americas Region consider that such training contributes further to the development of our countries.   Consequently, we hope to see you from August 18 to 22, 2004, in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

Melba Lucía Rivera de Reyes
Executive Director
Center of Excellence for the Americas Region