DENVER Canadians must embrace e-business quickly or risk being overtaken by global competitors. That familiar message was delivered by John Wetmore, president and CEO of IBM Canada, as he spoke to Canadian delegates last week at the J.D. Edwards user conference in Denver, Colorado.
"I plead with all of you to become e-business companies," said Wetmore, who challenged CEOs and CIOs to move quickly to embrace the $156-million e-business market.
Wetmore is a strong proponent of accelerated Canadian participation in e-business. The IBM Canada CEO was a member of the Canadian E-business Opportunities Roundtable, which studied Canada's role in global e-commerce. Wetmore is now co-chair of the E-business Acceleration team, a working group of the Canadian E-business Opportunities Roundtable.
Wetmore said that Canadian CEOs are too conservative, take too much time to make decisions and have a false sense of security when it comes to the Internet. Nevertheless, he says Canadians do have some advantages compared to their U.S. counterparts.
Wetmore notes that Canadians have a higher rate of Internet access compared to the U.S., browse more sites than Americans and have cheaper Internet costs than south of the border.
As Wetmore urged his fellow CEOs to take to the Internet marketplace, others noted that it will take a lot of missionary work to spread the e-business news in Canada.
"Canadians tend to be risk-adverse. They tend not to take that big leap of faith," says Gerry Bleau, vice-president of the Americas for J.D. Edwards.
Bleau, whose company is rebounding from the Y2K lockdown, says firms that spent large sums of money on being prepared for Y2K are skeptical about the latest Internet frenzy.
"Y2K has left a sour taste in their mouths because it was a non-event," says Bleau.
Nevertheless, he says ferocious competition is the one thing that might spur Canadian companies to sit up and take action regarding B2B and the Internet.
"It's eat or be eaten. If (Canadian companies) don't do anything, somebody is going to come along and take their business away.
