Telecommunication infrastructure Stats: Phone lines per 1000. Fiber trunks & submarine cables. T1, ISDN other high speed services.Mobile, PCS, cellular systems. Satellites, earth stations, and teleports. Diffusion of private networks (e.g WANs). Domestic Telecomm players
Privatization and deregulation When were each of the following privatized/deregulated and what has been the impact?: voice, cable, television, radio, PCS, computer hardware and others.Is market competitive? prices-- high or low on comparative basis?
Internet activity Stats: number of Internet hosts & number of web sites. Type of international Internet connections. Internet Service Providers (ISP) costs for consumers and businesses. Other on-line services and their impact/saturation
Computer hardware and software Stats: Mainframe penetration; PCs per 1000 people, PCs per 1000 in business; Size of domestic hardware production; size of domestic software market. Major players in IT sectors: hardware, software, peripherals, services. Discuss marketplace.
IT export areas Hardware, software, telecommunications, chips, boards. Software, software services. Are there are software niches that the nation has developed in which it is becoming recognized as a regional or global player?
Human capital & IT Stats: Literacy; percent of adults who are college grads; English fluency; Number of CS/CE/MIS post-secondary programs; grads per year; Software professionals per 1000; Emigration (brain drain) of computer professionals 3. Immigration of computer professionals; Computer magazines, clubs, trade associations of interest
IT geographics Is there a high-tech technopolis similar to Silicon Valley? Are there IT incubators? . Are there special IT R&D parks.
IT usage Historical stimulus for IT growth versus current stimulus. Major customers: Government? Military? Private sector? Within the private sector, which industries? In what way are the domestic customers (un)sophisticated customers?Special cultural attributes that help/hinder IT
Government policies Major government R&D initiatives/programs; their costs and an assessment of their success. Government plans/focus in IT policies. Global Information Infrastructure (GII) plans
Legal environment Intellectual property protection, particularly software copyrights. Are they enforced? What is the piracy rate? restrictions on trans-border dataflows. Are they observed/enforced? Are privacy issues important?
Analysis: IT strengths and weaknesses. Competitive advantage of country in IT. Discuss strong IT areas; Would you invest in new IT manufacturing? Would you foster software development (e.g. off-shore programming)?. Why nation is far behind and why it will continue to be?
Analysis: impacts on the (non-IT) globally-competing firm Here you need to think carefully about what you would as a decision maker of a non-IT company such as a candy manufacturer. If I.T. considerations were they only considerations, then how would you answer the following questions: Would you set up a sales office in the country? Would you expand it? Would you set up a regional distribution center? Would you set up a manufacturing center?. Support for network infrastructure: Availability, cost, quality.. IS professionals to support IS: training, cost, quality.. Cases of success and failure
Sources and links All references from paper-based sources (they can be linked to here from the place of use like an end-note).. WWW references used (including built-in links). Other useful or interesting WWW sites relating to this topic.
Page last updated: May 03, 1998