Connectivity Scorecard 2011: why is being connected so useful?

Connectivity Scorecard 2011 emphasises the need for sustained focus on information and communications technology (ICT) for sustainable socio-economic growth.

Countries that continue to invest in ICT infrastructure, applications and services, as well as promoting ICT workforce skills and use, will be better able to cope with the effects of global recession and boost their socio-economic growth. This is one of the key findings published today in the Connectivity Scorecard 2011. Among innovation-driven economies, Sweden retained its top spot, despite the United States closing last year's gap.

The annual global study, which analyses 'useful connectivity' in 50 countries, is commissioned by Nokia Siemens Networks and authored by Professor Leonard Waverman, Dean, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, in conjunction with the consulting firms, Berkeley Research Group and Communicea. It defines 'useful connectivity' as a combination of infrastructure, complementary skills, software and informed use that allows ICT to be a key driver of productivity and socio-economic growth.

"Despite global economic shocks, the knowledge economy is growing in power. While many advanced countries are forging ahead in terms of infrastructure and their use of ICT, the real connectivity gaps are in the developing world with the exception of strong growth in mobile telephony," said Professor Waverman. "One thing which is clear is that developing countries must make ICT more affordable, stimulate its adoption and overcome barriers to its use to remain relevant and competitive."

"By commissioning the Connectivity Scorecard, we aim to highlight the pivotal role of information and communications technology in driving productivity and sustainable socio-economic growth," added Kim Jones, the Connectivity Scorecard programme manager at Nokia Siemens Networks. "In its fourth year, the study reiterates that broadband infrastructure deployments only translate into faster economic growth when there is complementary investment in skills as well as in relevant services and applications."

While the US remained a strong performer in this year's Scorecard, it failed to capture the top position from Sweden by only a very narrow margin. Moreover, though Korea and Japan performed well in this category, their rankings fell because business investment and use of ICT failed to match the levels achieved in Northern Europe and the US.

The Nordic countries, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, along with the Netherlands, continued to lead the innovation-driven economies and ranked among the top five. However, Finland fell three places to the ninth spot, edged out by UK, Canada and Australia, which performed relatively better. Conversely, southern and eastern European countries trailed behind the leading economies in all aspects of ICT as tracked by the Scorecard. Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Greece were disappointingly placed among the bottom five in this group.

Malaysia maintained its lead among the 25 resource and efficiency-driven economies for the fourth consecutive year. While Russia, Turkey and countries in Latin America performed favourably, South Africa fell seven places to the ninth rank. India and China continued to trail behind the smaller, richer economies. However, China climbed three places to 14, whereas India was only ranked 21 out of 25 countries. Apart from a few strong performances, most of the countries in this group scored poorly according to the latest data used in this year's study.

"This year's Scorecard includes a broader range of indicators to capture new forms of ICT use such as cloud computing, business mobile data services, and ICT investments in healthcare and education. The weighting methodology has also been updated extensively," said Kalyan Dasgupta, Principal, Berkeley Research Group. "While the overall impact of the indicators was modest for most innovation-driven economies, the new data caused an increased dispersion between the best and worst resource and efficiency-driven economies."