INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY A Veritable Tool for Leadership Skills

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: A Veritable Tool for Leadership Skills’ Acquisition ! d more … an ‘Gbenga Sesan www. gbengasesan. com me@gbengasesan. com 1 Perfecta Club, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. January 31 2003. NIGERIA.

LEADERSHIP: The missing piece in the Naija puzzle Empires, nations, organizations and people groups have always progressed – or otherwise – based on the quality of leadership they’re exposed to, e. g. Rome, US, Enron, Igbo Leadership is not achieved by birth or location! Nigeria’s second generation leadership slots are empty! Nigeria needs a new generation – a new breed without greed, and strongly opposed to the status quo ante Leadership can be cultivated… An object will always continue in its state of rest unless acted upon by a force. A man’s life will always gravitate in the direction of his most dominant thought Identify tools that can aid your interaction with leadership – STUDY, MENTOR-PROTEGEE, SELF-PRACTICE platforms 2

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: A Veritable Tool Each age has its own tool. The New Economy’s central tool is Information Technology… just as automation was the central tool for the Industrial Revolution The need to master the use of Information Technology – in the broader sense of Information and Communication Technologies – is not negotiable, it’s the world’s direction Information Technology is multidisciplinary and you need to identify the portion you wish to “swim in” Information Sciences, Telecommunications, Networks, Computing and Emerging Technologies have converged to provide this generation with a tool with which we can acquire appropriate skills, e. g leadership 3

Deploying the TOOL The Internet remains the world’s largest library, encyclopedia and resource centre rolled into one. Explore it, study the content, meet with the living and the dead who lived your dream, and shorten the distance between you and knowledge Don’t just get, give. Contribute your own quota to the world’s pool of leadership skills by uploading content to the web. I see a new Nigeria emerging…one that will be built on the labours of our heroes past, hewn out of the debris of the present waste and engineered by the strength of the … youth. These young men and women will adopt Information Technology for the purpose of personal development, nation building, regional cooperation and global participation. They exist unknown today, but in the secrecy of their abode, they master the tool 4 that will change their lives and that of their nation.

Introduction to the New Economy The influence of Globalization: Same world, no excuses The need for Universal Access: Grandpa’s SMS from the farm! The dissolution of boundaries: A Real Virtual Republic The discovery of Synergies: Convergence of technologies Emergence of a knowledge-based economy: Heads vs. Hands The importance of Wired Societies: The Information Society It’s a NEW economy: The rules are changing fast! The New Economy and the Internet: Siamese twins? Meet the Future: e. Fridge, Virtual Reality, Global Numeric Commons (e. g. Tade goes to buy pizza) 5

The Internet in Representations 1 Source: Newsweek 6

The Internet in Representations 2 Source: Newsweek 7

The Internet in Representations 3 Source: Newsweek 8

The Internet in Representations 4 Source: Newsweek 9

The Internet in Representations 5 Source: Newsweek 10

The Internet in Representations 6 Source: Newsweek 11

The Internet in Representations 7 Source: Newsweek 12

The Internet in Representations 8 Source: Newsweek 13

A Brief Introduction to e. Commerce Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines commerce as follows: com. merce n [MF, fr. L commercium, fr. com- + merc-, merx merchandise] (1537) 1: social intercourse: interchange of ideas, opinions, or sentiments 2: the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place e. Commerce is the use of internetworked computers to create and transform business relationships. Applications provide business solutions that improve the quality of goods and services, increase the speed of service delivery, and reduce the cost of business operations. 14

Introduction to e. Commerce It is most commonly associated with buying and selling information, products, and services via the Internet, but it is also used to transfer and share information within organizations through intranets to improve decision-making and eliminate duplication of effort. The new paradigm of e. Commerce is built not just on transactions but on building, sustaining and improving relationships, both existing and potential. Web surfing brings each e. Commerce (Electronic Commerce) site and its product or service into the home, office, room or palm of the client and orders can be placed with the click of a mouse or the push of a key. Personal identification, customer preferences and a sophisticated database of customers can be monitored to provide tailored or customised services to clients. Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) makes it possible for transaction to be completed with payments carried our real-time and online. 15

A brief history of e. Commerce Communication Phase 1 One-way marketing ftp; gopher; news File transfer; communication to academic and computer Enthusiasts Mosaic Simple World Wide Web vanity pages for market information dissemination; basic customer service World Wide Web Simple transactions; basic communication to/from Company Phase 2 Customer interaction Phase 3 Organization and process transformation Phase 4 Source: Commerce. Net Transformation of business processes and new lines of Business 16

Trends and Factors of New Economy There are several trends and factors that are instrumental in shaping the current and future of e. Commerce. They include: · Economy: Organizations in the past were large, slow and pyramidal. Power was based on who controlled capital. Today we are moving toward a knowledge economy where creation and dissemination of knowledge is the means to control. New organizations are flexible, dynamic and dramatically lower in land, labor and capital requirements. It’s the quality and productivity, rather than the volume, of workers that define the new economy. · Politics: The politically powerful controlled the means to production. Democracy was mitigated by economics. Information was top-down, tightly controlled, and slow moving. We are moving into a new information and knowledge is more accessible; and the creation of knowledge and constant learning is made easier, empowerment is made more tenable (although not a given). 17 Source: Commerce. Net

Trends and Factors of New Economy · Culture: Dual income households, increased workloads; and commute time had a detrimental effect on culture and the quality of life. New workplace designs and telecommuting afford more time for leisure and family. Culture is based less on capital attainment and more on knowledge acquisition. · Technology: Early technology implementation devalued workers as it was used to replace people and to reduce costs. Emerging technology characteristics include: 1. creation of virtual spaces 2. interactivity of work; 3. disintermediation, providing direct communication 4. immediacy of information to conduct work and make decisions 5. bandwidth to exploit the potential of multimedia for work 6. accessibility of information both just-in-time (pull) and broadcast (push) 18 Source: Commerce. Net

Key Applications of e. Commerce (B 2 B) The Internet can connect all businesses to each other, regardless of their location or position in the supply chain. This ability presents a huge threat to traditional intermediaries like wholesalers and brokers. Internet connections facilitate businesses’ ability to bargain directly with a range of suppliers, thereby eliminating the need for such intermediaries. There are, however, tremendous opportunities as well as threats for companies regardless of their position in the supply chain. They include: Providing Information Purchasing and Selling Moving to an Internet platform 19

Key Applications of e. Commerce (B 2 C) • One-way marketing: Corporate web sites are still prominent distribution mechanisms for corporate brochures, the push, oneway marketing strategy. • Purchasing over the Web: Availability of secure web transactions is enabling companies to allow consumers to purchase products directly over the web. • Relationship Marketing: The most prominent of these new paradigms is that of relationship marketing. Because consumer actions can be tracked on the web, companies experiment with this methodology as a tool for market research and relationship marketing: Consumer survey forms on the web, using web tracking and other technology to make inferences about consumer buying profiles, customizing products/services, achieving customer 20 satisfaction and building long-term relationships

Data on e. Commerce Sales $1. 4 trillion by 2004 (Conservative estimate) 21

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: A Veritable Tool for Leadership Skills’ Acquisition ! d more … an THANK YOU! ‘Gbenga Sesan www. gbengasesan. com me@gbengasesan. com 22 Perfecta Club, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. January 31 2003. NIGERIA.