Eighty-three per cent of the organisations surveyed ranked security as their main concern. Other risks that ranked high, but still a distant second, included cost of technology, technological obsolescence and legal infrastructure. C onclusion Electronic commerce in Singapore will grow at a fast pace in the foreseeable future mainly in the areas of distribution and sales and customer service. The motivation is to improve competitive advantage, rather than to generate revenue. However, with various initiatives started in Singapore by various organisations, the focus may shift quickly.
Security is the chief concern of the organisations surveyed.
The lack of public confidence in the security of electronic transactions and the absence of a widely accepted security standard for transactions and payments are also the major obstacles to eCommerce. Security is not only important from the operational business delivery perspective, but also because security breaches have the potential to completely eliminate any competitive advantage, brand name development and customer confidence that organisations work so hard to earn. The majority of respondents are planning more aggressive use of eCommerce with an increase of 47 per cent and 60 per cent respectively in the number of respondents who will be using eCommerce for distribution and sales, and customer service in the next two years. The rapidly evolving Internet and eCommerce technology today allows more interactive processes to be performed than before. As the Internet reaches critical mass, it is no wonder that the more interactive functions of distribution and sales, and customer service are growing at an accelerated rate.