Over the last 7 years OIC members have acquired a great deal of experience in developing
education/awareness programs and strategies to implement those programs.

In addition as various products and services have been developed by members those project 
consortia have understood the process required to educate and implement E-commerce applications.

The OIC members who have participated in this submission consider that a 5 year clearly defined
strategy is necessary to ensure the willing adoption of E-commerce particularly by Small and 
Medium size Enterprises.

There are a number of reasons to have a 5 year plan for this project.  These reasons include:

1 Issues involved with E-commerce are policy issues not technical issues

2 This EoI proposes registries for different industry groups.

3 These industry groups may be peak bodies usually with a management committee

4 It will take the management committee 1 year to prepare a case for acceptance 
  for the members probably at the Annual General Meeting

5 It will take a further 1 year for the Peak Body to revise its own business processes to 
  accommodate the registry process

6 It may take up to 3 years for the members of the Peak Body to register their details on 
  the new registry system

In the meantime a large scale education/awareness program has to take place to explain the
benefits of participating in providing the details for the registry.

For this education/awareness program to be affective and strike the right chord with Industry
Peak Body members research on the real benefits to the members of that industry group for 
participating in the process has to be carried out.

This requires a sponsor to stimulate that initial process.

A recent and very relevant project is the Roadshow proposed by the OIC Local Government Interest
Group [LZIG] to the 15 Regional Organisation of Councils [ROCs] to explain the benefits of 
Councils reviewing XML applications to provide enhanced community services.

The Business Entry Point [BEP] section of the Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and 
Small Business [DEWRSB] commissioned a series of surveys on XML by members of the Open 
Interchange Consortium [OIC] with NSW Local Government Agencies through a 
Consultancy Contract. 

These surveys were to:

1 Determine who the appropriate contact with Council for Internet Policy issues

2 Identify which applications are of most interest to Councils

3 Catalogue the:

	i	current application packages
	ii	suppliers
	iii	age of installation
	iv	whether package was Web compatible
	v	if XML compliant

These surveys determined the issues that were important to Councils to provide enhanced
community Services and provided a list of Local Government software suppliers.

The results of these surveys were most unexpected and have provided a substantial foundation 
for the content of the planned series of Roadshow.

The issues of most importance to Councils are:

	1	Project Management					95%

	2	Attracting New Businesses to the Community		88%

	3	Importance GIS systems					81%

The survey question "Has Council consider E-procurement for purchasing" produced a response of 
60% Yes vote with a low interest and priority rating for most Councils.

However it is important to understand the BEP motive for commissioning the surveys and its
relevance to this EoI 2001/10.

BEP has determined that many Councils comprise Mayors and Councillors who operate local small
businesses.  

It is Government policy at Federal, State and Local Government levels to provide Electronic 
Tenders to enable a "level playing field" so that any organisation can compete for Government 
business.  

Hence this initiative by DEWRSB to outline to Councils how XML can reduce the cost of compliance
for organisations who wish to trade electronically.

It is considered that these Roadshows to the ROCs can provide the initial venues for future
presentations to local Small and Medium size Enterprises over the next 5 years.