With more focus on Foreign Direct Investment and international trade, Oman needs to pay more attention to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) -oriented business to reach the next level of international trade, opines an expert.
"Information and Communications Technology (ICT) provides businesses with avenues that allow them to remain competitive in local and global economies. fostering technological change and more intense adaptation and use of technologies by the business sector, as well as the public, would allow the country to reach higher productivity levels fairly quickly", Fathi al Riyami (pictured), CEO, Cosmic Surrounding Technology, an Oman-US company told the Observer, quoting the World Economic Forum 2013.
He said that the total number of people connected to the internet worldwide is expected to surpass 2.7 billion by end of this year, while the total number of applications downloaded over all types of devices will exceed 50 billion, according to new report by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
"Organisations use websites to compete in global market as a means to provide information about their products or services. In addition, merging innovative technologies such as virtual environments, social media and other online tools allows companies to list their products online and enables them to communicate, display and promote their products and services to customers in real time with customised engagement capabilities. With the use of innovative and disruptive technologies it is possible to reach out to different demographics through the use of trendy platforms and media. Such advanced setup can facilitate connections between the business and new markets".
SME industries in developing countries are experiencing challenges resulted by the globalisation of production and shift in competitiveness and an integrated ICT can be very handy in facing the same.
"While ICT is linked to a firm's ability to be innovative with the way it introduces new products, services or even its business processes, it is important for organisations to support and provide the appropriate training to its employees so they have the ability to produce, be more efficient, reduce cost and assist the organisation in gaining a competitive edge. Additionally, the opportunity is in helping traditionally analog industries to migrate to the technological world.
Tourism sector is yet another recipient of the abundance of benefits from ICT advancement and a country like Oman would need to seriously look into the same.
"ICT has taken the tourism industries by storm and has motivated organisations and governments to adapt the methodology of empowering the visitor by blending several technology processes to provide information, images, videos and visitors engagement and with a carefully selected assortment of innovative technologies, significant improvements can be made in user experiences by increasing empowering capabilities", Al Riyami added.
© Oman Daily Observer 2013
