Some cautionary notes about the government's e-vision

Laudable. Hard to argue with.

I'm reminded, just a little, of the "ISO9000 tick of quality" requirements a few years back. It was promulgated that to do business with government you had to be accredited. Despite the merits of the reasoning behind it, the truth was that this actually worked against the little business, imposing a significant compliance cost for arguable benefit.

To be fair, I think what's being promoted here is a more welcome horse of quite a different colour, but I still think there are lessons lurking in the ISO story for us today. Compliance costs are a burden and it's just a bit too pompous to make thunderous pronouncements about how getting "e-ised" is "good for business". It may be. Equally, it may not be for the tens, indeed hundreds of thousands of Australian businesses.

I know what the words say. But, I also know that governments are not above acting in their own self-interest, to reduce their costs, to reduce their inefficiencies, to streamline their processes. Is the reality, at least in some cases, that these benefits will come at the expense of imposts and issues for small businesses?

Let's say I invent Acme Vegetables, a carrot grower in Camden. Acme is a small business. It sells to government – the local army firing range. Acme also sells to Coles Myer. It sells to the local hospital and sells surplus carrots to a distributor in Sydney. They are at the entry point of four different, independent supply chains. Today they don't have a PC. They're not part of the digital economy. Apart from selling good quality produce they have no "clout", they are in no position to "re-engineer their supply chain" and still less to "automate it". Indeed, the word "it" is wrong – "them" is correct.

What are they going to do? Are they bristling with enthusiasm to get themselves onto the proposed Single Supplier Register? Are we saying to them that getting with this government strategy is about as optional as breathing and they won't be selling their carrots to the Army next year unless they join in? Is this the catalyst they need to go out to Harvey Norman and buy that PC? And what about getting themselves online? Who are they going to call when they need help – and they will, there's nothing more certain.

Do any of us believe, that the mere act of buying a PC and hitching up with this new Commonwealth Purchasing Regime is a surrogate for Acme having any form of Internet strategy, or any capability whatever to alter the balance of power in their supply chain? Could we even say we seriously believe that Acme understands these questions? I would say not.

We in ABL have grappled with these issues at some cost and with patchy results. But we've felt the urge to try and more is needed on many fronts to help the "Acmes" of Australia make sense of all this.

What about their connectivity costs? I would suggest that many of us are spoiled by being "always on" at our Internet-connected desktops. Not Acme. They have a phone and a fax. When they use the Net, they'll not receive calls or be able to make them. And they'll pay STD rates for call connection time.

And what about the fact that Acme is at the entry point of several supply chains? Let's say that each chain is undertaking a joyous engagement of the e-commerce revolution. Each is driving out costs, and administrative inefficiencies, implementing their own idiosyncratic choice of e-commerce trading hub software driven by the business nous of those higher in the supply chain who have the power to mandate the systems. There may be a balance-of-power shift, but it's unlikely to be to Acme.

Instead, Acme may well feel embattled and under "optional" pressure to comply with the technological demands of four different systems. They need to load their details four times, learn to navigate four different user ergonomics, load and maintain catalogue and price data in four systems, receive trading reports (probably by email) from these four systems, perhaps receive payments in up to four different ways and somehow integrate all this dis-integrated stuff into their financial management system (if they have one).

It's a good thing Acme's MD is a computer and e-commerce whizz, isn't it?