The green paper on e-commerce is at the risk of being superseded by events and will have to battle against the risk of obsolescence, says eBucks.com CEO Michael Jordaan.
[VIDEO]He was delivering an ITWeb-sponsored keynote address titled "Unconventional Wisdom" at the Computer Faire in Midrand yesterday.
Jordaan, who stressed that he was presenting his personal views, and not necessarily those of FirstRand Bank or eBucks.com, said the speed at which the green paper was progressing had been one of the fastest of any green paper issued by government.
However, in an environment where time is short, regulations were dangerously lagging development in the South African "e-world".
"If e-commerce is such a global phenomena why are we fashioning rules from scratch? Why do we not take the existing international guidelines and principles - in fact those which are already incorporated in US legislation?"
He pointed out that Asia and Africa together represented only about 1% of the world`s Internet users and therefore it made no sense to develop rules and guidelines from scratch.
Jordaan said great advances of mankind were not based on conventional wisdom, but on an understanding of where conventional wisdom had failed.
[VIDEO]He cited as an example the clash between the "old economics" and "new economics" theories during the dot-com hype.
Both were over-simplistic and neither properly incorporated the impact of rapid technological advances on the economy.
"As theories and companies mature, we now witness a race towards the middle ground. Brick and mortar are becoming brick and clicks." New economy start-ups were being absorbed into old economy companies and economic theory was unifying, he added.
"There is no such thing as a new economy. The economy we have today is the same one that we will have tomorrow and is the same one that we had yesterday. It relies on exactly the same economic fundamentals of supply and demand that were in operation when Adam Smith penned his Wealth of Nations.
"Networked technology will alter our world as radically as the industrial age changed the agricultural economy, but the basics haven`t changed. Economic cycles are here to stay and recessions are as inevitable as hangovers after heavy drinking."
Jordaan added that if Telkom were not privatised soon, "we risk marginalisation".
"Privatisation and competition of South African telcos will result in significant investment in our networked technology backbone. Once we have competition, free Internet service provision which comes with a telco kick-back will become a sound business reality in SA.
"Customers will have choice and despite the investment required, costs will be lower. I cannot emphasise enough the hugely positive role that these telcos can play in catapulting SA ahead."
Commenting on other aspects of the e-economy, he said outsourcing technology was equal to abdication of responsibility.
"At the very least, you as a company should be responsible for your own business case development, your own analysis of the solution, detailed design requirements and you should have a very close role in the implementation of that solution."
Click here to read Michael Jordaan`s full speech.
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