ECAT and ECAT Network: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
[ Last Updated 16 February 2006 ]
Version.1, March 2001
"When you are part of a network, you can relax your grasp. Your power comes not from being strongly connected to any one resource but being loosely connected to many resources. Although the network can be global in scope, the elements of the network (that's you) can be specialised and limited, able to focus on core competencies, that is, the competencies required for the opportunity at hand."1
Contents
What is ECAT?
The Electronic Commerce Action Team (ECAT) has been set up with four aims:
- supporting the implementation of the government's e-commerce strategy;
- advancing the uptake of e-commerce across regions and industry sectors;
- improving the e-commerce capabilities of businesses and their advisors; and
- promoting e-commerce and its opportunities and challenges to the broader community.
ECAT is about sharing leadership between government, business and the broader community, and contributing to the e-commerce vision that New Zealand will be world class in embracing e-commerce for competitive advantage. It is one of the key results of the November 2000 E-Commerce Summit and the E-Commerce Strategy.
Why ECAT?
E-commerce is becoming increasingly important to the New Zealand economy - in developing new businesses, as well as in maintaining and enhancing the competitiveness of our traditional sectors. ECAT is a focus for grassroots initiatives that will assist all New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses to take advantage of electronic commerce.
What's the big idea?
ECAT is designed to reflect as far as possible the dynamism and flexibility of the e-commerce environment. The idea is to harness the basic attributes of the Internet - fast communication, easy collaboration and openness to information sharing - to galvanise the uptake and use of e-commerce by New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses.
ECAT's core values are based on the principles behind the E-Commerce Strategy
- Partnership - each Network member taking responsibility for actions;
- Leadership - a shared responsibility of Government and the private sector;
- Inclusiveness - efforts are made to include a wide variety of groups and individuals;
- Feedback and responsiveness - which means that action plans need to be able to respond to changing conditions and new information and needs;
- Openness - information will generally be shared;
- Flexibility - embracing a range of solutions that best suit particular sectors or situations, and
- Co-operation - a recognition that the goal is to grow the economy as a whole with the payoff being greater opportunities for individual citizens and businesses.
How has ECAT been set up?
ECAT has three pillars:
- The ECAT Core Group, a leadership team appointed by the Minister for Information Technology;
- A largely self-selected ECAT Network of sector or community groups and individuals (the ECAT Network); and
- A website.
What is the ECAT Core Group?
The ECAT Core Group is a broadly representative but small group of industry/business leaders and e-commerce savvy individuals appointed by and reporting to the Minister for Information Technology. Members of the Core Group are not paid, but expenses are reimbursed.
How was the Core Group chosen?
Organisations were asked to nominate representatives who would be chosen for their leadership rather than their IT skills or knowledge. However, some individual members have also been appointed for their working knowledge of e-commerce. See:
Priority was given to organisations whose membership has a significant impact across the economy and society with the aim of involving those occupations or sectors where an increase in members' understanding of e-commerce will significantly assist the general uptake of e-commerce in New Zealand.
What if my organisation is not represented on the Core Group?
You can still participate through the ECAT Network. Indeed, the ECAT Network will only achieve its aim through the active participation of as many organisations and groups as possible. The ECAT Network needs you!
What is the ECAT Network?
The Network is a more informal means of connecting the whole range of organisations, groups and individuals that have an interest in driving the uptake of e-commerce in New Zealand. Membership is largely self-selecting and will be made up of people and groups who:
- have registered their organisation or group as an member of the ECAT Network or
- want to self-organise into e-commerce action teams (ECATs) on a regional, sector or community basis.
The ECAT Network will assist in raising the visibility of local, regional and sector e-commerce initiatives. It will be a means of utilising the expertise and mana of local and sector leaders to drive the uptake of e-commerce, together with greater use of the Internet.
The ECAT Network will share information, knowledge and resources among members, identify achievable goals and encourage the adoption of Six-Quarter Action Plans for realising these goals.
The ideal result will be a web of ECAT Network members spread over the whole range of activity in the economy: a virtual community committed to achieving the e-commerce vision through individual and collaborative activities.
What will I gain from belonging to the ECAT Network?
The value of the ECAT Network is:
- Collaboration; members will be able to share information on common actions and problems and collaborate on solutions. Members will be able to see what others are doing and save time and money by not having to "re-invent the wheel".
- Enhanced knowledge base; one of the values of a network is that members have access not only to written information, but to the information and experience stored in other people's heads. The ECAT Network will facilitate easier access to expert advice and skills;
- Tools and structure - while the ECAT Network provides a high degree of flexibility, it also provides some tools and a structure for groups and individuals to identify e-commerce related objectives, work towards achieving those objectives and to measure progress;
- Education - ECAT Network members will be exposed to information on the latest e-commerce developments in New Zealand and internationally, and this will assist in the design and implementation of sector and community specific programmes. Members will also have access to resources that will assist them to organise workshops, speakers and training programmes.
- Visibility - many groups within New Zealand are already focused on upskilling New Zealanders to take advantage of the Internet and e-commerce. Becoming a member of the ECAT Network will bring greater visibility to your efforts both locally and nationally.
Who can be an ECAT Network Member?
An ECAT Network Member may either be:
- an existing group or organisation that decides to become an ECAT Network Member in order to help facilitate work on an ecommerce related issue;
- a new group formed specifically for the purpose of working on ecommerce issues.
Examples:
Sector: A business sector organisation may become an ECAT Network Member to work on ways to increase the use and understanding of ecommerce among its members.
Regional: A Regional ECAT might be set up with representatives from a range of regional interests, such as Local Government, Chamber of Commerce, Federated Farmers, Iwi and local Polytechnic or other education interests to work on facilitating the uptake and use of ecommerce in the region.
Community: A community ECAT might be set up by an Iwi or by other community groups to work on specific issues. Examples of such issues might be to find ways to deliver computer training and Internet access to members of the community, raising money to buy more computers for the local school, organise workshops on ecommerce for local businesses.
Can existing groups become ECAT Members?
Yes. In most cases it will be easier for existing groups or organisations to become ECAT members, rather than set up a whole new entity. Examples include but are not limited to:
- local government
- Iwi
- local business associations
- schools
- community groups
Can individuals become ECAT Network Members?
Individuals will also be able to join and make themselves available to the network as resource people. The Network, however, may not be used to tout for business or advance a personal agenda. Anyone who attempts to use the ECAT Network in this way will lose his or her membership.
What are the criteria for ECAT Network membership?
Any group may call itself an ECAT and become an ECAT Network member so long as it meets the following criteria:
- The constituency it represents is clearly defined;
- As an ECAT Member it develops clearly defined e-commerce-related objective(s) that will contribute to achieving the e-commerce vision. These objectives could be anything from, upskilling members of the community to a stated level, building a local broadband network, delivering education and training to local business, setting up a local portal, putting local government services online, wiring up the school and so on;
- As an ECAT Network Member there is a plan for achieving the objective(s);
- The objectives (at least in broad outline) are published on the ECAT website;
- The group is registered with the ECAT Network -a list of ECAT Network Members will be on the website;
- The group provides regular short reports on progress that can be published on the ECAT website.
Does the Government run the ECAT Network?
Yes and no.
The ECAT Network is a government initiative. The ECAT Network website and associated administrative and support services are provided by the government through the Ministry of Economic Development.
But the ECAT Network itself is made up of its members. Its success in making New Zealand "net-ready" will depend on the enthusiasm and work of Network members. The government's role is to act as a catalyst and provide a vehicle.
Who decides what issues should be addressed?
In the book Net Ready John Sifonis says:
Net readiness requires that decision making be diffused from the top to the nodes closest to the customers and, in some cases, to the customers themselves.2
Other countries have tended to adopt top-down approaches to encouraging the uptake of e-commerce. But a partnership approach to leading this is much more in line with the way the Internet tends to work. Implicit in the ECAT Network is the idea that one-size solutions are not appropriate in the e-commerce environment. In many cases issues are best identified and addressed at the grassroots level, with the support of the Network as a whole.
So it is that any ECAT Network member may identify and work on any issue related to the uptake and use of ecommerce in New Zealand. This may be at a sector, regional or community level.
ECAT Network members do not need to seek permission from government to work on an issue. Nor do they need to wait for the government to suggest an issue that needs to be addressed.
There are only two criteria that should be adhered to:
- Addressing the issue will help in realising the ecommerce vision;
- Priority is giving to addressing the most pressing issue, and/or working towards the objective that will deliver the greatest benefit.
The E-Commerce Strategy released in November 2000 outlines a large number of issues that need to be addressed. Some of these issues are things that only government can do such as pass legislation like the Electronic Transactions Bill, or build e-government systems.
Other issues - like providing adequate Internet connections to all schools - are things that government, the private sector and local communities may need to work on in partnership.
Other issues again, like increasing the understanding and use of ecommerce in a particular business sector, are things that should be driven by the sector itself with the government only playing a facilitative or supporting role.
The bottom line is that ECAT Network members should use the facility of the Network to decide themselves which issues to address, formulate a plan for addressing them, and use the Network to share or obtain information and knowledge that will assist in achieving the objective.
What are the Six-Quarter Action Plans?
A Six-Quarter Action Plan is simply an ordinary project plan designed to achieve a particular objective, but with two key differences.
The first difference is that the plan is broken down into chunks with a 30-90 day timeframe.
In other words, by the end of three months a concrete milestone must have been reached. At the end of each quarter the project should be assessed in terms of its usefulness and continued likely success. If it becomes clear that the project will not be successful, or that resources would be better placed elsewhere, then it should be abandoned. The idea here is to be flexible, and to commit resources to the things that will give the greatest return.
The second difference is that the whole project should be completed by the end of six quarters, and earlier if possible. The reason for this is that in the fast changing environment of ecommerce it is not prudent to commit to a plan that takes you much more than 18 months into the future.
These two differences are recognition of the fact that e-commerce is developing in a fast-changing environment.
So in implementing an e-commerce project, speed and flexibility are crucial.
Additionally, the Six-Quarter Plan format is designed to be a catalyst to encourage all New Zealanders to work towards achieving the vision for ecommerce - that New Zealand will be world class in using e-commerce for competitive advantage. Ideally we want to create an environment of co-operation and endeavour similar to the effort for Y2K.
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