EC chief says businesses are failing to pool ecommerce expertise

NEWS European businesses have come under fire from a senior member of the European Commission for stifling the growth of electronic commerce. Speaking yesterday at the BT E-business awards ceremony in London, Rosalie Zobel, Head of Unit DGIII at the European Commission, said that European businesses are still failing to pool resources and valuable expertise in ecommerce. She told the assembled audience of managers that, "businesses have to take risks if we are to achieve our goals", and that there is a clear need "to share knowledge and expertise". Zobel also called for central and local governments in Europe to work more closely with industry to accelerate the uptake of ecommerce, stressing the importance of collaboration at a European level. Afshin Mohebbi, managing director of BT UK Markets echoed Zobel's criticism. He said there are still too many technosceptics in business, and the majority have not even begun to think about doing business on the Web. Mohebbi argued that it is unacceptable for 13% of IT directors to be unconvinced that ebusiness will be central feature of their organisations in the near future. He added that BT has documented savings of over a billion UK pounds through its own use of extranet and intranet technologies.