For those of you convinced that e-commerce is the answer to everything, beware. The idea that we are becoming a truly global society, and hence a global business opportunity might be enhanced by some stories, such as the fact that India has the largest number of hotmail accounts anywhere in the world. Or that a Sri Lankan village heavily dependent on selling rice for its income managed to get a better price out of the middlemen by going on-line and checking the price of rice at the market in Colombo, almost doubling its income as a result.
But elsewhere, in Africa, things are more pedestrian. "It's not connectivity that's the problem, it's the infrastructure and regulatory environment," says Richard Bell, founder and managing director of internet and telecommunications provider Swift Global Africa, which concentrates on Kenya and Uganda. "Kenya refuses to deregulate the telecoms market, for example, and so can be very unreliable. They shut down the internet service for two weeks recently." Uganda, on the other hand, recently out of a civil war, has deregulated, says Bell, and offers a much better service.