Many people now regularly use the Internet to check the news, do research, find bargains, and manage their finances. The advantages of doing these day-to-day activities online are obvious: always on, fast, convenient, cheap, etc., but for some reason, people -- especially Hongkongers -- don't embrace the Internet in the same way when it comes to doing business online.

It could be argued that reading the paper, booking a holiday or paying bills online is not the same as doing business online. From a user's point of view, perhaps. But from the side of the businesses that provide these services that we have now become dependent upon, it is an extremely cost-effective way to add value and expand the services that they can offer customers.

Just why Hong Kong companies continue to lag far behind their Asian counterparts when it comes to using technology to increase their efficiency is a bit of a conundrum.

Hongkongers are not technophobic. A global Internet usage survey conducted by Nielsen/Netratings in August found that two thirds of the Internet audience in Hong Kong uses either a cable modem or high-speed telephone connection to access the Internet, dwarfing the rate at which surfers in 10 other major Internet markets have adopted high speed access. Similarly, its mobile phone penetration is also among the highest in the world.

To try and identify why, HKGCC's e-Committee, in cooperation with the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation and the Hong Kong Computer Society, last year initiated the E-commerce Adoption Campaign (ECAC).

"We received a lot of praise last year, but financial constraints prevented us from doing as much as we would have liked," said Chamber Information Services Committee Chairman Cindy Cheng, who, as chairman of the Chamber¡¦s e-Committee last year, helped kick off the campaign.

This year, HKGCC has managed to secure some funding from the government for the ECAC project, which will allow it to run substantive programmes over the next twelve months.

Data mined from last year's pro-grammes, such as the "Try it Online" pro-motion, roadshows and e-consultation sessions, will be updated through a number of industry specific e-commerce blueprint focus group discussions, which will be held throughout the remainder of the year.

The organisers are hoping that these talks will shed some light on why businesses continue to snub e-commerce. Despite the fact that fewer people are talking about e-commerce, Mrs Cheng does not think that this will be a problem in attracting interest in the campaign.

"I consider that is good news," she said. "It shows fewer people are talking about e-commerce either because they have written the whole idea off, or because it has become a part of their lives. I tend to think it is the latter."

Charles Chow of the Hong Kong Productivity Council, which is in charge of setting up the focus group sessions, agrees. "In the past, whether companies implemented an e-commerce strategy or not, was generally regarded as an internal matter. But today, e-business is now woven into the business infrastructure."

This is where he believes Hong Kong's Asian competitors with a high rate of e-commerce adoption, such as South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, are sneaking ahead of local SMEs. "This is likely to have a long-term, debilitating effect on Hong Kong's competitiveness as a service industry," he said.

Inertia, a weak economy and a shortage of IT talent are often blamed for Hong Kong company's resistance to the idea, but Mr Chow points out that these problems are not unique to Hong Kong. Even though the economy is down, companies should use this opportunity to see how they can boost productivity and efficiency, because once the economy picks up they will probably be too busy fulfilling orders to have the time to do this.

However, some SMEs are feeling that they are being forced into adopting e-commerce practices. They argue that if they can see the benefits of doing certain aspects of business online, such as email, online catalogues, and newsletters, etc., then they are willing to use these tools. What they object to is being called uncompetitive for not implementing e-commerce systems or services, even though they cannot see how they can benefit their business.

Despite numerous surveys showing Hong Kong has been slow to adopt e-com-merce, isolating the reasons why companies are dragging their feet has not been easy. Mr Chow is hoping to get those answers through the planned six focus group sessions: professional services, trading and wholesale, manufacturing, travel/tourism, financial services, transport/logistics.

Information gathered from these sessions will analyse business behaviour, leadership, government vision and role, infrastructure and IT skills to set the blueprint from the remaining phases of the project.

"Based on the findings in the e-Commerce Blueprint, we will organise a Business-to-Business ("B2B") symposium to educate Hong Kong SMEs on how to plan, build and deploy an effective B2B capability and to address the issues highlighted in the e-Commerce Blueprint," he said.

SMEs that have successfully implemented e-commerce solutions in their companies will also share their experiences with other SMEs at the symposium. But the organisers are aware that no matter how sound a theory for e-commerce adoption that they put forward, they need to get out on the road to showcase the product and services of SMEs who have deployed (or are already in the process of deploying) e-commerce capabilities.

Past studies conducted by the Chamber have shown that, ultimately, consumers drive e-commerce traffic and adoption rate. Without a critical mass of consumers, businesses find it difficult to justify expenditure on e-commerce solutions. For the moment, the bulk of Hong Kong online consumer purchases are conducted via foreign sites, but the roadshows will showcase what Hong Kong businesses have to offer.

As with studies conducted for last year's e-Commerce Adoption Campaign, all findings from this year's ECAC will be compiled into a report so that SMEs and the general public will be able to leverage on the results.