Simpson hopes summit will raise awareness of e-commerce

By DANIEL RIORDAN

New economy tycoon Sir Gil Simpson would like the Government to take a six-month tea break and give business a breather - but not before it hosts next month's e-commerce summit.

The Auckland summit will not set out to give business the answers on e-commerce; rather, it is designed to raise awareness, says Sir Gil, who will chair the two-day event.

"There might be the odd individual that comes out of the summit and says, 'I'm going to do this,' but in reality it's about building understanding.

"We're talking about a transformation for the way business works, and if you're going to make that transformation you need as much knowledge as possible.

"It's not a question of, 'You should be in e-commerce,' it's a question of saying, 'You should be aware of what e-commerce could mean'."

While some businesses remain sympathetic to author Mark Twain's "I'm all for progress, it's change I don't like," the number is dwindling by the day.

Many of the recognised prerequisites for e-commerce, such as high numbers of websites, secure servers and commercial internet domain registrations, already exist here.

The cost of using the internet is relatively low, and New Zealanders have an excellent record of adapting to electronic technology such as eftpos and electronic banking.

Sir Gil's views on New Zealand's relationship to the new economy have changed dramatically.

The change was triggered by an article in the weekly news magazine the Economist saying that New Zealand was not an innovative country.

Sir Gil took umbrage.

"I thought, 'Hang on a minute, that's a bit rough'."

But he thought about it some more and ended up agreeing.

"I decided we're a nation of improvisers, not innovators. We're good at making do with the minimum of resources, marshalling those to achieve what other countries do with much more."

The article affected the way Sir Gil's company, Aoraki Corporation, does business. He decided to devote more resources to markets identified as innovative, particularly Britain and the United States.

He is having more success getting big firms there to adopt Aoraki's Jade software than he is at home.

He reckons that is because non-innovators make many of the biggest buying decisions for their companies, and tend to settle for what they see as safe and secure.

That often excludes New Zealand software, which by its nature tends to be different.

"What I'd like to see in New Zealand is a recognition that this new space [of e-commerce] is going to be about innovation, about difference.

"If we want to succeed in the knowledge economy, we're going to have to have a society that tolerates difference, encourages difference, embraces difference, and actively looks for success through difference.

"A big part of the problem economically right now is we're not feeling good about ourselves.

"But if there's going to be growth that's sustainable, it has to be because we've got the right attitude."

Herald Online feature: the e-commerce summit
Official website of the summit