Speech by Mr Stephen Mak, Deputy Director of Information
Technology Services at the Hong Kong Federation of Business
Students (HKFBS) Annual Dinner on
23 - 03 - 2002
President Yip, Mr Thompson, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and
Gentlemen,
It is my great honour to be invited to speak at the 17th Hong
Kong Federation of Business Students Annual Dinner 2002. I am
awed by this elite group of energetic business students, aspiring
entrepreneurs, professionals, accomplished managers and of course
business leaders. It is for this reason also that I find addressing
you before your Annual Dinner such a big challenge. But I shall
try to share with you a few of my thoughts about the notion
of business in the Information Age, or the Knowledge Economy,
as some would prefer to call it. I'm going to talk about a couple
of exciting things that I see happening in my area of work,
information technology (IT), and how we manage it in the Government
context.
There is no doubt that IT is ingrained in the agenda for Hong
Kong. With the establishment of the Information Technology and
Broadcasting Bureau in 1998, and the publication of our first
'Digital 21' strategy for IT development for Hong Kong in the
same year, we have seen a number of major achievements in our
information and telecommunications infrastructure. These include
a much more liberalised telecommunications market, a robust
legal framework for secure electronic transactions, and the
successful launch of over 100 government-to-citizen (G2C) and
government-to-business (G2B) electronic transactions involving
over 40 government departments and agencies under the Electronic
Service Delivery (ESD) scheme. The 2001 version of the Digital
21 strategy, published in May last year, provided further impetus
for us to make use of IT in "Connecting the World". With key
result areas focussed on enhancing the world-class e-business
environment of Hong Kong, ensuring that Government leads by
example in e-enabling its business, developing our workforce
for the information economy, building a digitally inclusive
society and, last but not least, leveraging our strengths in
the exploitation of technologies, the new strategy has set the
scene for Hong Kong to scale new heights in our social and economic
development. Already we are seeing major initiatives like the
E-government, Multi-application Smart ID Card, E-Trade, and
E-Logistics underway. As business students, I strongly recommend
you to get to know the contents of that strategy and appreciate
the opportunities that it may present to you in your future
careers. As practicing business people, I'm sure you will also
find that Hong Kong is very well placed to make use of our excellent
e-business infrastructure to further enhance our competitiveness.
I now turn to the second theme that I would like to share with
you today, and that is the management of IT and how we manage
it in the Government context. IT has enabled business transformation
in ways that are only limited by our imagination. It has also
shown tremendous ability to scale in its applications covering
literally all sectors of society, and the full range of organisation
sizes. Today, there is hardly any aspect of business studies
that does not relate to or is impacted by IT, from the more
obvious examples of customer relationship management, enterprise
resource planning, globalisation, international e-trade and
supply chain management - to the more subtle topics of the social
life of information, managing 'attention' as the new currency
of business, and cross-engineering the organisation to reinvent
its business in the digital age. In taking forward our E-government
initiatives, therefore, one of our key tasks is to ensure the
management teams in bureaux and departments understand the benefits
of and issues brought about by IT. Specifically, we would want
them to be exemplary in the adoption of IT and to exploit its
full potential in enhancing public service and achieving E-government
targets. This means assuming total ownership of IT management
responsibilities, including IT in the governance structure of
the departments, sponsoring innovation and customer relationship
through IT, engaging in strategic alliances to maximise the
business opportunities for value creation, maintaining IT as
a core competency in human resource policy and practices, and
being sensitive to information security in protecting their
information assets. To assist bureaux and departments in this
transformation, my department will embark on a programme to
facilitate their establishment of IT Management Units in the
coming months.
What is the relevance of all this? We believe regardless of
our profession and trade, and whether we are in the private
or public sector, we need to prepare ourselves for the computer
revolution that is yet to happen. It has been said that in less
than 50 years' time, almost all information will be in cyberspace
- this includes all information about physical objects like
humans, buildings processes and organisations. Experts have
also projected that in about 20 years' time we may imagine building
the ultimate personal assistant made up of 'on-body' computers
that can record, index and retrieve everything we have read,
heard and seen in our lifetime. Before then, we shall continue
to see innovative IT solutions to enhance our business and daily
life. That is perhaps why some people have said that very soon
e-business will just become business.
In closing, I would like to congratulate the Federation and
its Advisory Board, Council, Executive Committee and Member
Societies for their efforts in providing this network to facilitate
the sharing of interests in business studies and related fields.
I'm sure this network will continue to interconnect its members
and provide opportunities for collaboration and strategic alliances
throughout their business careers.
Thank you.
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