• silicon.com
• Management
• CIO Insights

By Sally Watson, 14 October 1999 17:46

NEWS The UK's Institute of Directors (IoD) has appointed Jim Norton, outgoing director of the Cabinet Office's ecommerce team, to head up its ebusiness crusade. Norton, the author of the Performance and Innovation Unit's (PIU) report on ecommerce, wants to put the government's recommendations into action. He said: "I want to pick up the challenge of the PIU report and help to overcome business inertia. It's not something the government can do, it's something only business can tackle." Norton will co-ordinate a campaign to educate the IoD's members about the effect ecommerce is having on business and will travel around the Institute's 28 regional centres spreading the message. "We are not evangelising but creating an education programme for members. I want every company director to sit for a day and use the Internet to find out what it really means," he said. The IoD's new director general and former chairman of Unisys, George Cox, said it is the Institute's duty to change the attitudes and understanding. "This isn't a technical issue, it's about how ecommerce changes your business. The IoD has to take a lead," he said. Norton will also head up the IoD's government consultation team to represent the interests of business. "The Prime Minister is committed to self regulation," he said. "The speed of ecommerce is out of step with government legislation -it just won't wait that long." Cox added: "We are not shy about expressing our views to the government. We will speak up for our members. But ecommerce is one area where we fully support what the government is doing and hiring Jim Norton is a representation of that." But Norton may face an uphill task in changing the attitudes of some of the Institute's members. One director watching the announcement commented: "I don't understand it really. I still get my secretary to print out my emails."