Dr. Mohanbir Sawhney, the leading corporate guru on e-business, has called upon the industry in Gujarat to transform itself in context of the information technology revolution. Dr. Sawhney, the director of Centre for Research in Technology and E-commerce at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, was speaking to the representatives of industry at a talk organised by Confederation of Indian Industry in Ahmedabad on Saturday.

In a lighter vein, he said, "Three attitudes of Chalse, So taka and Chokkas kill the Gujarati business."

Internet is the single biggest thing to have happened to the industry in the last 40 years, he said adding that selling through the internet was not limited to computer-related products and that chemicals and petroleum products were also under its ambit.

Organisations like CII, which represent industry and trade, must create awareness in the local industries about the e-business. He said media too could play a significant role in spreading the awareness.

Commenting on the advent of e-business in India, he said e-retailing, which is part of e-business, is a "dead proposition" and will take time to develop in India.

Explaining the difference between e-business and e-commerce, he said, "E-business is a larger concept and it includes e-commerce. E-business implies the use of information technology in overall business applications and e-commerce is limited to financial transactions through the internet."

In reply to a query, Dr. Sawhney said apprehension of the concerned parties regarding e-commerce was valid as it involved financial risk, time and delivery risk and quality risk before settling of deals. However, he said in order to mitigate the risks a class of "trust facilitators" has emerged which caters to inspection and verification of the concerned parties. He also spoke about "inter-operability" between the parties in e-commerce where there was no common lexicon to improve communication between them. He said there were private hubs created like Biz-talk and E-speak, which could facilitate correspondence between the parties. Initiatives worldwide for standardisation of vocabulary had already begun, he said. Earlier, Dr. Madhukar Mehta, the Chairman of IT taskforce of Gujarat chapter of CII, welcomed Dr. Sawhney.

Republished from Asian Age