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Section 8: The Role of ITOL and NOIE

A recent report by Boston Consulting Group (2001,10) suggests that:

Government policy to assist business adoption is off to a good start. NOIE has taken some excellent steps, and the government is rated highly in its 'light touch' approach to regulation. ... The ... ITOL program to assist private sector in exchange development ... is a welcome step. ... Government's role in e-business adoption is twofold: to facilitate, where possible, the private sector's rapid adoption of e-business; and to ensure that government itself comes online quickly and efficiently. In both of these areas, Australia has enjoyed strong early leadership.

NOIE CEO John Rimmer (ITOL Workshop, 29/3/01) explained his vision for NOIE as a key focal point in coordinating, advising and leadership for the Australian government's consideration of information economic issues. He emphasised the adoption of e-business and online systems within government and the development of an innovative supply side industry. He regarded the ITOL program as a "catalyst for e-business adoption in the community (like the Metric Conversion Board role)," stressing the importance of a learning approach in the projects, building capabilities and skills, broader learning in e-commerce for the wider community, and as an investment in Australia's future. Another NOIE Branch Manager, Phil Malone (ITOL Workshop, 29/3/01) emphasised NOIE's role as a broker and facilitator.

8.1 Success

... The people at ITOL have been just wonderful to work with, and they have been patient and helpful (Interview, 2001).

In the process of putting in for the grant and having a look on the web site and looking at what other projects have been funded in the past, I was very impressed with the range and the sorts of things the Government was willing to invest in, given that none of the stuff was proven (Interview, 2001).

Respondents were generally very positive about NOIE's role especially as broker and facilitator. Many complimented NOIE's sponsored activities, staff behaviour, and the program's ability to respond to the real needs of SMEs. The majority felt the money involved was important but what was crucial was the credibility attained through ITOL by association with NOIE. The following reflect these positive attitudes (Interviews, 2001):

Our next grant application will be aware of the NOIE grant - it provides a leg-up.

ITOL funding was really helpful especially in getting us up and running in a timely way.

Program funding raised our credibility in industry. No problems with NOIE.

NOIE grant and stamp helped, especially in government groups ... it was an official blessing ... the private sector don't know us.

NOIE ... fantastic support ... we would never be as far down the road without NOIE.

Government grants are about pioneering with a new product and a new way of doing business. Government's role is to be a catalyst to get the project off the ground and focus [should be] on bringing people together.

The value of ITOL is in the money plus in bringing together a greater community of people trying to get things going online.

ITOL is an incentive to try something different. It is hard to sell to organisations the value in following an opportunity but if government money is involved it can be a catalyst.

The NOIE process is good - fairly painless compared to R&D Start grant .... Reporting is an incentive to keep project progress on track.

ITOL is an incredibly positive program ... without them it would be a lot harder. ... Hands-off approach good with NOIE and organisation's own IP.

...could have leveraged NOIE's contribution or input to us better... probably more a factor of our ability to market ourselves and the fact that NOIE has supported us. ... I think we probably as an entity didn't leverage off the NOIE factor more.

NOIE staff ... unsung heroes.

The ITOL workshops were regarded as very useful in terms of learning from projects in their various stages of implementation and helping new projects avoid many mistakes: "I came away from that ...[with] a whole new direction for the project ... well there's a lot of things we don't have to do, I know the answer already" (Interview, 2001). The opportunity to make mistakes and the fact that there was learning in the projects that NOIE wanted to gather was also appreciated by some project teams: "There are very few over the horizon successes in ITOL projects but we have learned many lessons. We will succeed eventually but in three times the initial timeframe envisaged" (Interview, 2001).

8.1.1 Increased awareness of e-commerce

A key feature of the ITOL program's success has been in raising awareness and understanding of e-commerce. For example, one can define success in broad terms such as did the following interviewee (2001): "... the whole project has taken the whole region a huge step in its knowledge, its views and understanding of the Internet. ... If you take the amount of growth in knowledge and expertise across thousands of people, it has achieved a huge outcome. It has just taken the region from one level to another."  Regional communities particularly welcomed the ITOL program success in raising the level of IT knowledge and sophistication. For instance: "I'd say a 2-3 to start with and now a 6-7" (Interview, 2001).

Case Study 5: My SouthWest portal project

An excellent example of how the collaborative efforts of a regional community sustained the growth of a replicable initiative

This portal project provides insights into innovative strategies for establishing a regional marketplace and provides an example of a real community of practice that has emerged from the use of the Internet. The project was designed not only to provide a gateway to the businesses and resources in the region but also to educate the community regarding the benefits and uses of information technology.

The South West Internet Committee, composed of 50 business, industry and government representatives, of the Bunbury Chamber of Commerce & Industries initiated the development of the portal. The ITOL grant provided in 2000 was used to enhance the portal's design and functionality and to market it.

To populate the site and attract users, the consortium used a "whole of community" approach wherein all sectors of the communities in the region were encouraged to establish a link or listing in the My South West search engine. Non-profit organisations are linked to the site for free while businesses and government organisations are charged a minimal fee for e-mail and web site links. As a result, the portal has become a real marketplace with over 1600 businesses and community groups with email and web site links on the site and 9000 organisations with a general (free) listing as of 1ST Quarter 2001.

The whole committee meets quarterly and communicates via e-mail. A management committee (with several sub-committees) is responsible for the Portal Development Project. The project team is now providing mentor support to other regional communities seeking advice on how best to develop their own portals.

The success of the project may be attributed to the project team's previous collaboration experience. Unlike other ITOL funded projects, this project used the grant to expand on what it had already started. It was not as difficult for the project team to collaborate because it was part of a well-organised entity (the Bunbury Chamber) and the members had well-defined roles.

Central to the project's success was the project team's bottom-up approach, its heavy reliance on local voluntary expertise, and its emphasis on local ownership. The team not only solicited voluntary contributions from local businesses but also involved locals in project planning and implementation. The portal was developed by local IT professionals (they deliberately avoided hiring the expertise of major IT businesses). The project team also promoted the portal as something that the Region can proudly call its own. As such, both the 'novices and experts' in the community learn by active participation in the portal's development.

Therefore, it is clear from the majority of the interviews that ITOL projects have, in a real sense, raised e-business knowledge in diverse regions, in businesses and in the broader community. Constructive collaboration had indeed enabled the growth of e-commerce capabilities.

8.1.2 Innovation

Several ITOL-funded projects have successfully pilot-tested innovative e-commerce solutions that may very well represent Australian best-practice models or even world-firsts. These include: the smart card technology now fully-developed and being offered commercially; the EBOM (Electronic Business Oriented Method) project providing frameworks or a set of "road maps" on how to think about e-business; and the Pacstream project linking small booksellers to publishers and key suppliers using a common inventory management system.

Case Study 6: TradeData

Example of an ITOL pilot project that has become commercially successful

ITOL support for the expansion of a trade data warehouse service based in Melbourne has proved invaluable for this sustainable and commercially viable project.

TradeData is a data warehouse service facility that provides reports on import/export details of thousands of internationally traded goods, based on information collected from Customs declarations. While the facility was established in 1995  - as a joint undertaking of Victoria University's Centre for Strategic Economic Studies and the Department of Applied Economics - it was through an ITOL grant provided in 1997 that TradeData was able to pilot test the technology and systems needed so that it could market its very large databases on the world wide web in a commercial context and with full security controls.

This data warehouse project enabled us...to really experiment. Without this [ITOL] project, we probably wouldn't be in the position we are now in ... . [It] has revolutionised our business ... we can do all sorts of new analysis that we couldn't have done or even contemplated before... . It's given us a twenty-fold increase in performance, [which] was all theory until this project (Interviews, 2001).

Since then, TradeData has been providing trade statistics on the size and price structure of markets in most European Union and 15 other countries (i.e., Australia, US, and major Asia Pacific countries). It also is able to assist in assessing market shares, in identifying market opportunities, and in evaluating the effectiveness of market strategies of businesses and governments. The web site <www.tradedata.net> also has a 'trade hotspot' page that provides vital information on demand for products and services.

8.1.3 Standards setting

Through ITOL, groundwork has now been done to facilitate the setting up of standards towards interoperability in the health, superannuation, electrical and cabling industries.

The ability to assist SMEs in particular was a critical issue. For many, an interest in e-business and e-commerce was about industry survival:

They are starting to see it as being something of a survival issue: unless people can start to do things more efficiently, it is just the cost of delivery of service or management of the regulatory compliance environment that they are in, then small operators will actually end up going through the wall. There will be no ability for them to sustain themselves and so they are starting to look at e-business and e-commerce as a mechanism for cutting costs and making efficiencies and their one focus is always about improving the quality of care that is being delivered as a result (Interview, 2001).

8.2 Challenges

While there were certainly successes among the different ITOL projects, there were also a number of challenges to achieving optimum online collaboration. These included concerns expressed by research interviewees about:

  • Level of project funding
  • Access to capital
  • Issue of change management and training for organisations
  • Issue of equity and access
  • Timeframes for projects
  • Facilitating networking and learning amongst projects
  • Promotion of project results and learnings
  • Quality review processes
  • Document ID: 19001 |
  • Last modified: 6 February 2008, 10:34am