Benchmarking Dublin as a World Class ECity

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Benchmarking Dublin as a World Class E-City

• Presentation
• by
• Declan Martin
• Dublin Chamber of Commerce
• February 2004

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Background

• Working Group established in May 2002 to
• Benchmark Dublin as an eCity against 13 other
  leading world cities
• Frame long term aspiration for Dublin as an
  eCity
• Comment on Irish eBusiness initiatives
• Use results to identify eBusiness policy issues

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The Importance of ICTs and eBusiness to Ireland

• The adoption of eBusiness is particularly
  important for Irish businesses. Analysis has
  shown that firms who use eBusiness effectively
  are able to generate revenue increases of 10 to
  20 and cut costs by 20 to 45.

Table 1 Relative Importance of the ICT Sector
to Ireland
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eCity Group
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Participants in Working Group

• 22 active participants in the working group
• operators (eircom, Esat/BT, NTL)
• major users (AIB, IONA, Microsoft, RTE)
• e-business companies (eBid, Eontec, Sercom)
• consultants (Ely, KPMG, McKinsey and
  independent),
• equipment providers (Cisco)
• Business representative organisations
• Dublin Chamber of Commerce

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Cities

• 14 e-cities Premier League
• Copenhagen, Dubai, Dublin,
• London, Singapore, Tel Aviv, Washington
• Helsinki, Milan, Prague,
• San Jose, Seoul, Sydney, Tokyo

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The report

• Dublin as a World Class E city
• Can be viewed or downloaded on
• www.dubchamber.ie

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Sources of Information

• Not easy..many sources needed
• Chambers of Commerce, Government agencies,
  foreign colleagues in same multinational, web
  sites, public reports.
• Problems with consistency of information
• Also, up-to-date information difficult to get

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What we looked at

• E-infrastructure (the degree to which the e-City
  is "wired")
•  
• Usage (degree of business and consumer purchasing
  electronically conducted)
•  
• Government role (local and national regulatory
  framework, planning and policy)
•  
• Fostering e-business (incubation schemes, and the
  availability of advice and mentoring)
•  
• Digital divide (penetration and access within the
  community)
•  

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E Infrastructure measurements

• Availability
• Choice
• Cost

• Local loop
• Wireless local loop
• DSL
• Cable
• Leased lines
• Optical fibre

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Usage measurements

• Consumer
• Business
• Central government
• City / regional government

• Internet availability
• Website
• Frequency of use
• E commerce
• E Government

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Benchmarking criteria

• Political leadership
• General Infrastructure quality
• Competitiveness of the e-infrastructure
• Labour competitiveness
• Business Skills and Entrepreneurial Culture
• Legal and Regulatory environment
• Availability of development and VC capital
• Financial incentives for corporate investment
• Technology integration and Digital Divide

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Ratings

• ? Excellent Rating
• ? High Rating
• ? Medium Rating
• ? Moderate Rating
• ? Low Rating
• ? No rating given

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What we found
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Good models
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Need for action
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Recommendations

• 50 specific recommendations
• 11 general categories of recommendations
• General themes
• quality e-infrastructure is needed for economic
  competitiveness reasons, but also for social and
  political benefits
• Symmetric 5 Mbps is the minimum acceptable 3-5
  year target current narrowband and midband
  services are transient and limited

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Recommendation Planning

• Urgent development of a credible, integrated,
  phased, costed plan for the national
  e-infrastructure
• Current Policy activities appear tactical, and
  not carefully considered
• Need to consider totality of last mile,
  backhaul and metropolitan, backbone, and
  international connections
• Need to plan for short, medium and long term

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Recommendation Common StakeHolders Group

• The plan should be developed by a joint
  Government-industry-user stakeholders group
• Separate from ISC and IBEC TIF ICT forums
• Focussed on practitioners and users

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Recommendations Video Quality Infrastructure in
3-5 years

• The plan should deliver a widely available video
  quality infrastructure in the medium term
• 5 Mbps minimum within 3-5 years - lesser speeds
  are not competitive
• But accept different timing and transmission
  targets for rural and urban areas

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Recommendations Regional spread

• The plan should bring infrastructure to towns as
  well as the city
• All bigger towns to have 5Mbps within 3 years

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Recommendations Collaboration

• The private sector, especially the broadband
  operators, and the Government should work
  together
• Stable e-infrastructure policy critical if
  private investment is to occur
• Avoid quality e-infrastructure duplication, and
  nurture shared access
• Regulate wholesale rates to at least
  international norms

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Recommendations Face Financial Reality!!!

• Cost of video quality broadband network needs to
  be recognised, accepted, and resolved
• 1B/year public/private investment for next 3-5
  years!!!
• Remove VAT from quality e-infrastructure services
• Consider investing e-VAT in e-infrastructure!!
• Save and Invest by aggregating Government demand
  factor out common IT services run a
  Professional IT organisation within
  Government!!!!!

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Recommendations Public Accountability

• The plan should be transparently implemented,
  and the e-Minister should be publicly accountable

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Recommendations Increase e-Government focus and
nurture use

• The Government should further increase its focus
  on e-government services
• The Government should actively nurture use of the
  e-infrastructure in addition to its own
  e-government services
• Accelerate e-health applications
• Extend training programmes to video broadband
  technology
• State Aid to multinationals dependent on
  e-procurement services

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Recommendations Be VISIONARY

• E-work pilots
• Video conferencing in education
• Rural and remote health care
• Security monitoring
• Movie on demand and archival video on demand
• Consolidated billing and revenue sharing
• Broadcast internet TV
• Community TV and narrowcasting
• Strengthen e-payments, and e-euro
• Video for e-retailing and e-helpdesks
• Supply Chain Management

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6. Some recent progress
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Dublin e-week April 2004
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Benchmarking where next ?

• Not an ongoing role for Chamber of Commerce
• Irish Government research agency has established
  an ongoing e-benchamrking process (www.forfas.ie)
• Most recent report Broadband Communications Jan
  2004