Integrating the real world and cyber world is important for business continuity

Too many companies still regard e-commerce as a separate business pillar to their traditional business, not realising that in order to maintain business continuity - and in order to leverage off the many benefits potentially offered by the new digital economy - these two business entities need to be viewed as part of one integrated enterprise.

So said Maeson Maherry, general manager of NamITrust, the new security division within the end-to-end secure transactions company, NamITech. NamITrust includes the products and services of SACA, recently acquired by NamITech, part of the JSE Securities Exchange-listed Nampak group.

"Any e-commerce drive should be integrated, and linked to, a company`s core business. By doing this, management will be able to derive the benefits of doing business in both the real and cyber world - at the same time maintaining overall business continuity. While a lot of people still think that conducting business over the Internet is far more insecure than through traditional brick-and-mortar methods, if the right secure technology is put in place, transacting in the digital economy can be a lot safer - and a lot more convenient.

"In fact," said Maherry, "one of the high-growth areas in the next few years will be the introduction of the correct secure technology, such as PKI, biometrics and non-repudiation, and the convergence of them with both the traditional part of the business and the e-commerce side."

He said e-secure technologies will become an integral part of the entire business, not just part of the "outwards facing part" of a company.

The dot-com crash did act to put a damper on market perceptions about e-commerce - but yet e-commerce is inexorably growing. "The perception will change rapidly with time. The first misguided perception is that it only really delivers a business-to-consumer approach, but more and more business leaders are now realising that e-commerce is a critical part of an internal business, including knowledge management, workflow and supply chain management. All these business systems will benefit enormously from e-commerce - if that e-commerce solution is integrated with the correct e-secure technology."

He said companies will have to take a step back and realise that if they are to compete in the new global economy they are going to have to maximise the use of their information assets and they are going to have to ensure that their clients and business partners feel safe about transacting with them.

"The new economy will be online. Businesses will have to be trusted in this new business domain and it will become their responsibility to ensure that they can conduct business transactions safely.

"In the traditional economy we sign paper documents to confirm contracts and transactions. These are safely filed away to be used as proof at a later stage if need be. In the cyber world we do the same, but we use digital signatures. These electronic signatures, on electronic documents, can be safely stored online and offline. They will be a lot safer at the end of the day and a lot easier to store. In fact they will cut down tremendously on the cost of the paper-based office.

"But," he said, "the onus is on companies to learn and to realise the benefits of harnessing e-secure technologies in order to benefit from e-commerce. If internal systems are not safe and a company is compromised, it will lose trust in the marketplace - and with its clients. This can lead to significant financial damages.

"Without a doubt, there will be a convergence of security technologies in the e-commerce world. These technologies, as they are increasingly introduced and implemented, will act to support, and grow, the ambitions of the soon-to-be-promulgated e-commerce bill - a new bill that at least recognises the importance of e-commerce and the fact that e-commerce transactions need to be able to be proved in a court when there is any dispute about their veracity."