112106: 77 indicators to help measure e-commerce

By Rommer M. Balaba
Reporter

UP to 77 existing and new indicators may make up the data set that would measure the value of e-commerce transactions in the Philippines, a preliminary report from an earlier consultative workshop on e-commerce measurement said.
           
The report also proposed to define e-commerce as “any commercial transaction conducted through electronic, optical and similar medium, mode, instrumentality and technology. The transaction includes the sale or purchase of goods and services, between individuals, households, businesses and governments conducted over computer-mediated networks through the internet, mobile phones, electronic data interchange and other channels through open and closed networks.”
           
Outputs from the workshop would be presented for action to the National Statistical Coordination Board-Executive Board during its fourth-quarter meeting on November 22.
           
Besides the indicator set, workshop results likewise recommended that an Inter-Agency Committee on Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) Statistics be created to serve, among other functions, as a forum for the discussion and resolution of issues relating to ICT statistics.
           
The proposed indicators supposedly should cover three levels of maturity: e-readiness, e-intensity/e-usage and e-impact which, when culled into a measurement for e-commerce, should not only “promote ICT consciousness and capacity building but more importantly provide for a conducive ICT environment for business, public administration and services delivery, education and communications.”
           
The report, however, noted 35 indicators are still not available and may be formulated for possible inclusion in the questionnaire of the 2010 Census of Population and Housing. Up to 14 household and individual level indicators needed for e-commerce remain unavailable with 17 for business and four for the government.
           
Among these are the number of household members with mobile phones by type of subscription (prepaid, postpaid), by sex, age; expenditures of household members on mobile phone services by sex; number of households with PCs: urban-rural; number of household members who used a PC in the last 12 months: by sex, age; and household member frequency of use of PC by sex, age.
           
The unavailable government indicators include the proportion of government bodies placing orders over the internet, mobile and other electronic media; value of orders placed by government bodies over the internet, mobile and other electronic media; proportion of government bodies receiving orders over the internet, mobile and other electronic media and value of orders received by government bodies over the internet, mobile and other electronic media.

 

Business Mirror
November 21, 2006