Oleh/By : DATO SERI DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : DEWAN TUN ISMAIL, PWTC KUALA LUMPUR
Tarikh/Date : 04-10-2001
Tajuk/Title : THE OPENING OF THE CEO AKSI
SUMMIT 2001
Versi : ENGLISH
Penyampai : PM
I wish to thank the Ministry of International
Trade and Industry for inviting me to officiate the
opening of the CEO AKSI Summit 2001.
2. I am pleased to see so many Chief Executive
Officers gathered here today to show their support and
contribute to the discussion on accelerating the use of
ICT in business. This reflects the growing interest and
commitment among the CEOs on the use of e-commerce in
particular, and ICT in general, in the production and
marketing processes. It is my hope that this
conference will contribute to greater awareness and
understanding among the CEOs on the importance of ICT
and e-commerce so that necessary steps can be taken to
e-enable our enterprises.
3. The CEO Summit is indeed timely, with the rapid
advancement made in technology which has resulted in e-
commerce becoming an important facilitator in the world
of trade for goods and services. Although forecasts
vary, analysts agree that the potential for e-commerce
is enormous.
4. E-commerce is not a `passing fad'. It has become
a reality that we have to accept and adapt ourselves to
if we are to succeed in this era of global economic
interdependence. Many of us are somewhat wary of e-
commerce especially after the worldwide dot.com crash.
But the crash has woken us to reality about E-commerce.
The crash was not due to e-commerce but the baseless
speculation on the share market of the dot.com
companies. The share prices were not in any way
related to the real value of the dot.com companies.
They were hiked up in order to give huge capital gains
and profits for the speculators. When it was found
that a majority of the dot.com companies had no assets
or even real potential for realising the value of the
ideas on which the businesses was based, investors
dumped their shares and bankrupted the companies, their
founders and their other share-holders. The collapse
was not due to e-commerce but the result of share-
market manipulation.
5. Having gone through the dot.com crash, it is clear
that e-commerce is not about putting the suffix ".com"
and other Internet suffixes to company names. And
implementation of e-commerce is more than just having a
website on the Internet. E-commerce is still about
selling goods and services and ideas. E-commerce
simply speeds up and expands the business of companies
through easier access and distribution of information
on the business.
6. E-commerce is about improving and expanding
business through greater and better use of information
and communication. Where once only the giant
corporations were able to obtain information and reach
customers through their worldwide network, now through
the Internet even a one-man business can have access to
unlimited information through the Internet and to
disseminate information about his business literally
worldwide, and so have a bigger clientele or customers.
Cleverly managed even small businesses in small
countries can grow into a world player.
7. E-commerce is consequently an integral part of the
agenda for Malaysia to move into the information era.
E-commerce will enable Malaysian businesses to create
new values, raise the level of productivity, increase
competitiveness in export markets, and facilitate new
types of business process for reaching out to customers
around the world. It would enable companies to operate
globally, without the need to have physical presence in
so many places around the world. This mode of business
operation is especially suited for a small trading
country like Malaysia, where the cost of developing new
markets and promotion is often prohibitive.
8. The benefits derived from this new way of doing
business are particularly suited for SMEs, which, in
the traditional business mode, are often handicapped by
their limited market exposure. With e-commerce, SMEs
have the opportunity to extend their geographical
outreach and secure new customers and business partners
in ways formerly limited to large companies only.
9. As in other countries, e-commerce in Malaysia is
private-sector driven. The role of the Government is
to create the right environment for e-commerce to
flourish. In this connection, the Government has
initiated several efforts to lay the foundation for e-
commerce in the country. These include enacting five
cyber laws to provide a framework for e-commerce, which
encompass aspects concerning security of information
and network integrity and reliability.
10. With a market and business friendly public sector
policy framework in place, the private sector is in a
favourable position to adopt and use e-commerce to
conduct business. Presently we are still in the early
stages of e-commerce development. Many of our companies
especially the SMEs have yet to acquire e-commerce
capability beyond having websites, to disseminate
information about their companies, products and
services.
11. The Government would like to see the manufacturing
sector upgraded and equipped with the latest
information and communication technology to enable it
to move in tandem with new developments in the world,
where companies are increasingly undertaking e-
commerce, using computer networks and the Internet, to
better serve customers, and to work more efficiently
with partners, suppliers and buyers.
12. The greatest impact of e-commerce, will likely be
on SMEs because many large companies would already have
some electronic systems in place. In fact, established
large companies today are shifting their critical
functions to the Internet, and they expect all
companies, which support their operations, such as
vendors and suppliers, to also come on board to be
electronically linked. In the wake of the current
world wide economic slowdown and in anticipation of
greater competition with market openings under AFTA and
the WTO, cutting the costs of doing business,
increasing speed and adding value through extensive use
of IT and to improve the supply chain, are logical and
necessary step for companies wishing to stay
competitive and to survive.
13. I am concerned about the low levels and the nature
of ICT utilisation of our companies especially the
SMEs. They risk being sidelined because they are not
able to connect electronically to the global supply
chain network. If nothing is done to rectify this
situation, it would mean losing out to players from
more advanced countries and literally disappearing from
the business world.
14. There is an urgent need for more companies
especially SMEs which constitute about 90 percent of
the establishments in the manufacturing sector, to
quickly adopt the new electronic medium, and to expand
their electronic operations from purely administrative
and inventory keeping to actual day-to-day
transactions.
15. To reap the benefits offered by e-commerce, it
should be viewed as a source of business opportunity,
and appropriate steps must be taken to exploit this
opportunity, by being electronically enabled and
connected. Not acting on this opportunity would put
our industries at a disadvantage in the global market,
where competitiveness is being increasingly improved by
the use of ICT. Remember that Government protection
cannot be relied upon any more once markets are opened
by AFTA and the WTO.
16. I would like to seriously urge the CEOs, in
particular CEOs of Malaysian owned companies, to commit
themselves to using more ICT in their business
processes. I also would like to call upon CEOs of
MNCs, and large local corporations, which have the
resources to implement e-commerce, to work with SMEs as
well as with services providers such as banks,
technology companies, logistics companies and
telecommunication companies (telcos) / Internet Service
Providers (ISPs) to bring e-commerce into the
mainstream of business in Malaysia.
17. Malaysia's own IT agenda and strategies will mean
nothing if we are not prepared to act upon them. We
should now move forward to implement and realise our IT
agenda and strategies. Admittedly it will not be easy.
Many issues need to be examined and barriers to be
overcome. This will be the challenge for all CEOs
present today, to discuss and draw up a practical and
workable action plan for implementation.
18. I am confident this CEO Summit, attended by some
of the best brains in business will provide new ideas
on how we can move forward together, to further exploit
the use of information and communication technology in
order to modernise trade and industry and support as
well as grow the economy.
19. On this note, I now declare this CEO Summit open
and wish participants a fruitful deliberation.
Sumber : Pejabat Perdana Menteri
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