In co–operation with the IBM Institute for Business Value, The Economist Intelligence Unit has released its e-readiness rankings for 2007.
Canada, now ranked 13th [from number 9 last year], slipped out of the top 10,
owing to a slightly reduced social and cultural environment score, and a lower rating for government policy and vision than other developed-market peers.
Unfortunately, ranking schema will always be marked by biases created by weightings and priorities assigned by their authors to various criteria. For example, in 2007, this study
eliminated fixed-line phones as an indicator and increased the weight of mobile penetration, as mobile phones are generally cheaper, easier to access and, with text messaging and mobile commerce applications, increasingly powerful digital devices.
At first glance, such a shift may seem innocuous but it is based on European pricing practices and therefore may discriminate against historically low pricing for wireline services in North America. Further, as we have discussed previously, European wireless penetration rates are artificially pumped up by users with multiple SIM cards arbitraging roaming rates or gaming ‘on-net’ calling plans.
There are bright spots for Canada in the report. Thanks to “political stability, a positive foreign investment environment and strong support for private enterprise and competition,” Canada is ranked as the world’s best business environment. In addition, Canada’s legal environment for internet issues is ranked in the top 5. The four factors assessed in this area are:
laws must sufficiently protect consumer rights and intellectual property rights (IPR) offline and online; they must foster the development of digital security enablers such as authentication and certification of online transactions; they must not censor; and, they must allow new businesses to be registered quickly and easily.
It is a new category, called “Government Policy and Vision” that led to Canada falling out of the top 10. The category is actually more of ranking of government leadership – tied to performance and adoption of new technologies by departments other than those we traditionally expect to lead the development of internet and e-commerce policy.
E-ready governments supply their constituents—citizens and organisations—with a clear roadmap for the adoption of technology, and they lead by example in their use of technology to create efficiencies. The Economist Intelligence Unit has created this new category to assess the activities of governments in this area, and their ability to lead their countries towards a digital future. Are governments employing technology to operate and provide public services with less resource investment? Are they spending on ICT to stimulate similar spending in the greater economy? Are “savings” translated into service gains for citizens? Can more people interact with, and receive information from, the government regardless of their own access to technology?
Public Works, CRA, and other agencies will all contribute to improving performance on criteria such as total government spend on ICT as a proportion of GDP; digital development strategy; egovernment strategy; online procurement.
Thanks to a regular reader for pointing me to Om Malik‘s reference to this report.
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