Christopher Roessner
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The outcomes of the WSIS in Tunis are describing the aspects, streams and future task of the Information society in a very ‘public’ way.1 ‘Public’ means hereby that governmental issues have a high priority in the respective documents. One of the issues which had been given only limited space in the WSIS outcomes is electronic commerce (e-commerce) or e-business, how it is called in the WSIS documents. E-commerce, “the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks”2, generated in 2003 sales worth 12.2 billion USD.3 However, the distribution of this sales represents the inequality, may it social, digital, economical are all together, in the Information Society.
 | A prop airliner vs. an Airbus 380
In some countries or regions companies like e-bay, amazon.com and others base their business activities on a working infrastructure of postal services, credit cards and other financial mechanisms, easily available broad band internet access and favourable policy environment. In other countries/regions this infrastructure is practically not existent. Postal services are expensive and not reliable. Credit cards and credit in general is only available for a small and rich percentage of the population. Internet access is a costly resource and the policy environment is characterised by corruption, scarce know how and frequent change of governments. It is like comparing an Airbus 380 on the Frankfurt Airport with a prop airliner on a dusty track in the Amazonian rainforest. Latin America is one the latter regions.
The challenge
Latin American e-commerce and community based e-commerce (throughout the world), in general, face a similar problem. Independently how well designed the applications are, independently how thoroughly the market analysis had been carried out, the all deciding question is:
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When answering this question, e-commerce in Latin America fails to reach more than the small rich percentage of the population, because the mentioned barriers hinder the take off of the e-commerce airplane.
The result is shoddy overpriced merchandise that the importers bring in, which they mark-up (including marking up on the freight and customs duties). The same importers have distributors to the interior cities that sell to the stores and resellers, both of which also mark-up. The variety is weak, the quality poor, the prices outrageous and the guarantee of new products is virtually non-existent. Many of these products come from contraband, obviously without warranty.
The idea
As a response to this reality the Ecuadorian Fundación ChasquiNet developed with partners a comprehensive and innovative business idea. The I-Malls project is a consequence of positive experiences during an e-commerce pilot with Ecuadorian telecentres. It is the attempt to use a big plane and to establish via an internet based trading platform a two-way channel for the sending and receiving of goods, remittances and social services, e.g. health insurances. A special quality of I-Malls will be the provision a full landed costs to the customer, who no longer have to concern about international shipping costs and customs costs. However, the real clue is that I-Malls is using telecentres as effective channels for e-commerce.
Telecentres
Telecentres are meeting places within a community. They are used by different community stakeholders. This can be local schools, local entrepreneurs and community initiatives which work for the improvement of
 | the quality of life of the community’s population. In order to achieve their specific goals, these stakeholders are strategically using the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) which the telecentre hosts.
The locations of telecentres usually are rural and/or poor communities. Those can be villages in the Amazonian rainforest as well as migrant communities at the heart of New York City or Barcelona. The innovation is that, by using telecentres, also people without credit cards will be able to purchase and sell online. As a consequence, I-Malls reaches communities which until now had not been directly connected to the international exchange systems of a globalised world. |
A response to migration
This illuminates an important characteristic of I-Malls. By connecting telecentres in Latin America to telecentres in countries like the US, Canada or (in a later stage) Spain the two-way channel of I-Malls will also be a response to international migration, one of the, if not THE, most pressing phenomenon of today’s globalisation. Only as illustration, every third Ecuadorian adult lives and works abroad!
A multi-stakeholder task
Considering all this, it is clear that the construction of the two-way I-Malls channel is a task which must be carried out by a multi-stakeholder partnership (MSP). For this reason, the I-Malls project gathers as partners the international logistics provider UPS, the IT-provider Microsoft, more than 5,000 telecentres within the Telecenters of the Americas Partnership (TAP) and a variety of local banks and credit unions. It brings them together in a new configuration (see figure 1).
Because of the different capabilities inside the multi-stakeholder partnership the question of how to get the goods from here to there and how to pay and get paid becomes resolvable. This is a milestone for e-commerce in Latin America.
The history
The I-Malls project had been initiated in 2004. The I-Malls process had been defined on outline level in 2005. The current complicated task of all stakeholders is the refinement, application, local appropriation and local implementation of the defined I-Malls process. As a result pilot projects in geographical zones covered by telecentres (clusters) will start operating in 2006. The goal is to establish the I-Malls in Canada, the US and six Latin American countries during the next two years and to expand globally afterwards.
The character of I-Malls
I-Malls is about improving the plane and the airport.
It will be the first big scale e-commerce service who does not require credit cards from its customers, who delivers at least to the community if not to the door, who offers a two-way channel, who offers a credit line for micro enterprises and which has as its main goal the incubation of community development in the connected communities. The latter is of crucial importance for the success and, hence, the sustainability of I-Malls. Only if I-Malls catalyses community development the communities will use the I-Malls channel in a sustainable way.
Therefore, I-Malls MUST be a two-way channel.
Communities get access to new markets as purchasers as well as producers. Communities will receive training. I-Malls will provide a microcredit line and small and medium enterprise (SME)assistance (specific training courses, support materials, assistance with import/export and shipping).Altogether opens the door for community development and this development is mandatory for success in the long run, for the community and for I-Malls!
I-Malls and Tunis
To sum up, I-Malls responds to the recommendations of the Tunis agenda.4 It is a multi-sector partnership. It addresses rural and low-income markets and will lower investment risks and transactions costs. It improves financial mechanisms in geographical areas where the need for reliable services is urgent.
The I-Malls implementation process as a holistic challenge
However, in order to reach these goals the I Malls implementation process must be seen as a multidisciplinary challenge. It combines logistics components, financial components, software engineering components, usability engineering in culturally different locations, IT-security components and economics components. It is among others a legal, logistical, technological and cultural challenge.
In short, it is a holistic challenge!
The only way to overcome this challenge is to take a multi-disciplinary perspective. The project will not take off in the sense of Rostow, if only one component is emphasised. To put the focus only on market issues is as wrong as to think exclusively on community issues. The staffing, training, organisation and the implementation of the I-Malls project must and is taking this into account. The result is an innovative and challenging process, implemented by a multi disciplinary and multi-cultural team in a transnational context.
An exciting trip, which starts with the take off of a prop airliner in Latin America and which is intended to end with the landing of an Airbus 380 in airports throughout the world.
