An assessment and strategic guidelines for developing e-commerce in the Asia-Pacific region

The Asia-Pacific region is growing in e-commerce adoption despite a global economic slowdown. Developed countries that have been offering e-commerce have shown impressive performance in their respective economies, but the Asia-Pacific region still lags behind in the e-business race. This is due to several factors which include language. education, technology, and technical infrustrucrure. The aim of rhe following discussion is to develop a framework that embraces key global driving forces and national policy forces impacting e-business readiness in the Asia-Pacific region through conceptualizarion of the key global forces as primary drivers of e-business readiness and narional policy drivers as enablers of e-business growrh. Using these determinants, a strategic map is then developed to identify where various counrries in the Asia-Pacific region are currenrlx posirioned in rerms of their respective e-business readiness. Key factors that act as impediments to e-commerce growth as well as straregies to accelerate the growth of e-commerce in the Asia-Pacific region are presented.