US businesses should surf to Asia
An inward-looking approach to Internet commerce will cost United States businesses billions of dollars per annum.
Countries outside the US are begging to embrace the Internet, with Asian Internet use particularly rising sharply.
The International Data Corporation predicts that by year-end 2000, active adult Internet users in Asia will number 38 million.
By 2003, this figure will grow two-and-a-half times to 95.83 million online users, or 25.7 percent of the world's total.
Of particular significance was that the report found that Asia's e-commerce growth will increase to $88 billion from $6.6 billion at year-end 1999.
Asian businesses are starting to recognize the Internet as a profitable communication medium for business transactions.
Forrester Research predicts that e-commerce will account for 8.5 percent of the global sales of goods and services in 2004.
The research found that North America will still dominate online trade with $3.5 trillion in sales by 2004.
However, the Asia Pacific will close the gap with $1.6 trillion in Ecommerce sales, with business-to-business trade in the computing and electronics industries dominating.
Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce is expected to create most of the revenue generated from Internet sales in Asia.
These Asian e-commerce growth estimates should encourage American firms to begin cultivating profitable relationships with Asian countries via the Internet.
The Internet has eliminated the distance barrier, but there are still language barriers to overcome.
Assuming that all Asian businesses communicate in English would be a mistake. An International Data Corp report highlights that successful e-commerce relations could depend on multilingual communication.
The Report said, "By 2003 one-third of all Internet users will prefer to use a language other than English".
This will force American companies to increase the importance they place on multilingual staff and Internet tools.
A suit of Internet tools has been created by translation company WorldLingo.
Phil Scanlan, WorldLingo Chairman, said the products offered by his company would help American companies conduct profitable transactions with Asian businesses.
"We have free translation tools which help with Web and E-mail communication," Mr. Scanlan said.
The products include a Browser Tool for Internet Explorer, a Translation Object that webmasters can place on their site, and an email translation service. All tools can translate to and from eight languages.
"The email service is particularly useful for creating profitable relationships with non-English speaking countries, and it is a great compliment to sites that have been localized" Mr. Scanlan said.
"Many businesses make the mistake of thinking that once their site is presented into different languages, they will be able to build trade relations with non-English speaking countries."
Mr. Scanlan said it was important to have an email translation system to be able to read and respond to messages that may lead to sales.
"Our email translations provide the gist of the message, so businesses can quickly decide whether it is important to the bottom line, or if it can be discarded."
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