DYNAMICS OF THE NEW ECONOMY by ‘Gbenga Sesan gbengasesan me@gbengasesan

DYNAMICS OF THE NEW ECONOMY by ‘Gbenga Sesan www.gbengasesan.com me@gbengasesan.com NYSC InfoTech Corps. May 28 2003. Lagos, NIGERIA.

“I see a newNigeria emerging…one that will be built on the labours of our heroes past, hewn out of the debris of the present waste and engineered by the strength of the future leaders: the youth. These young men and women will adopt Information Technology for the purpose of personal development, nation building, regional cooperation and global participation. They exist unknown today, but in the secrecy of their abode, they master the tool that will change their lives and that of their nation. This presentation is dedicated to such heroes; unknown but silently building the nation’s tomorrow today” - ‘Gbenga Sesan. November 26, 2001

Introduction to the New Economy • The influence of Globalization • The need for Universal Access • The dissolution of boundaries • The discovery of Synergies • Emergence of a knowledge-based economy • The importance of Wired Societies • It’s a NEW economy: The rules are changing fast! • The New Economy and the Internet

The Internet Revolution • From the Stone Age to the Information Age • Birth of the Internet and the World Wide Web • The New Revolution: • eCommerce • The eFridge • W.A.P. • Virtual Reality • The Dot Bomb experience & Business Plans • The Future @ the speed of the Dot (www.gbengasesan.com/papers/future.doc)

Emergence of the World Wide Web 1. Tim Berners-Lee of the European High-Energy Particle Physics Lab (CERN) created the World Wide Web in 1992. 2. Inspired by Ted Nelson's work on Xanadu and the hypertext concept, the World Wide Web incorporated graphics, typographic text styles, and-most importantly-hypertext links. 3. The Web uses three new technologies: HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is used to write Web pages; a Web server computer uses HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) to transmit those pages; and a Web browser client program receives the data, interpretes it, and displays the results. 4. In 1993, the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana released Mosaic, a Web browser designed by Marc Andersen and developed by a team of students and staff at the University of Illinois.

The Internet in Representations 1 Source: Newsweek

Introduction to eCommerce Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines commerce as follows: com.merce n [MF, fr. L commercium, fr. com- + merc-, merx merchandise] (1537) 1: social intercourse: interchange of ideas, opinions, or sentiments 2: the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place eCommerce is the use of internetworked computers to create and transform business relationships. Applications provide business solutions that improve the quality of goods and services, increase the speed of service delivery, and reduce the cost of business operations.

Introduction to eCommerce It is most commonly associated with buying and selling information, products, and services via the Internet, but it is also used to transfer and share information within organizations through intranets to improve decision-making and eliminate duplication of effort. The new paradigm of eCommerce is built not just on transactions but on building, sustaining and improving relationships, both existing and potential. Web surfing brings each eCommerce (Electronic Commerce)site and its product or service into the home, office, room or palm of the client and orders can be placed with the click of a mouse or the push of a key. Personal identification, customer preferences and a sophisticated database of customers can be monitored to provide tailored or customised services to clients. Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) makes it possible for transaction to be completed with payments carried our real-time and online.

A brief history of eCommerce Source: CommerceNet

There are several trends and factors that are instrumental in shaping the current and future of eCommerce. They include:· Economy: Organizations in the past were large, slow and pyramidal. Power was based on who controlled capital. Today we are moving toward a knowledge economy where creation and dissemination of knowledge is the means to control. New organizations are flexible, dynamic and dramatically lower in land, labor and capital requirements. It’s the quality and productivity, rather than the volume, of workers that define the new economy.· Politics: The politically powerful controlled the means toproduction. Democracy was mitigated by economics. Information was top-down, tightly controlled, and slow moving. We are moving into a new information and knowledge is more accessible; and the creation of knowledge and constant learning is made easier, empowerment is made more tenable (although not a given). Trends and Factors of New Economy Source: CommerceNet

Trends and Factors of New Economy · Culture: Dual income households, increased workloads; and commute time had a detrimental effect on culture and the quality of life. New workplace designs and telecommuting afford more time for leisure and family. Culture is based less on capital attainment and more on knowledge acquisition.· Technology: Early technology implementation devalued workers as it was used to replace people and to reduce costs. Emerging technology characteristics include:1. creation of virtual spaces2. interactivity of work;3. disintermediation, providing direct communication4. immediacy of information to conduct work and make decisions5. richness/bandwidth to exploit the potential of multimedia for work6. accessibility of information both just-in-time (pull) andbroadcast (push) Source: CommerceNet

Key Applications of eCommerce (B2B) The Internet can connect all businesses to each other, regardless of their location or position in the supply chain. This ability presents a huge threat to traditional intermediaries like wholesalers and brokers. Internet connections facilitate businesses’ ability to bargain directly with a range of suppliers, thereby eliminating the need for such intermediaries. There are, however, tremendous opportunities as well as threats for companies regardless of their position in the supply chain. They include: Providing Information Purchasing and Selling Moving to an Internet platform

Key Applications of eCommerce (B2C) One-way marketing. Corporate web sites are still prominent distribution mechanisms for corporate brochures, the push, one-way marketing strategy. Purchasing over the Web. Availability of secure web transactions is enabling companies to allow consumers to purchase products directly over the web. Relationship Marketing. The most prominent of these new paradigms is that of relationship marketing. Because consumer actions can be tracked on the web, companies are experimenting with this commerce methodology as a tool for market research and relationship marketing: Consumer survey forms on the web, Using web tracking and other technology to make inferences about consumer buying profiles, Customizing products and services, Achieving customer satisfaction and building long-term relationships

Data on eCommerce Sales $1.4 trillion by 2004 (Conservative estimate)

Conclusion & Recommendations 1. Nigeria’s Challenge: National Policy for Information Technology “To make Nigeria an IT capable country in Africa and a key player in the Information Society by the year 2005, using IT as the engine for sustainable development and global competitiveness.” 2. The Youth’s Opportunity: “An object will continue in a state of rest, or constant uniform motion, unless otherwise acted upon by a force (Isaac Newton)… Think not of what your nation can do for you but what you can do for your nation (Abraham Lincoln)… The youth is the strength of any nation, the hope for it’s future and the link between it’s today and tomorrow. It’s an opportunity to build tomorrow today! ”

Conclusion & Recommendations 3. Recommendations: • What do you want to do in life?How does the Web come in? “The whole world steps aside for a man who knows where he’s going” – Unknown. • Acquire appropriate skills through self-study : Maximize the Internet! MIT OCW - http://ocw.mit.edu • Two are better than one! Synergy always works… • Act Now! Don’t wait for a better Nigeria or a green card… “I walk slowly but I never walk backwards” – Abraham Lincoln • Paradigm Shift: A move away from Certificates to Proficiency • Energy Redirection: Moving from Vices to Virtue

DYNAMICS OF THE NEW ECONOMY by ‘Gbenga Sesan gbengasesan me@gbengasesan