1. PRIVATE SECTORS PERSPECTIVES ON ICT IN BRUNEI CASE

2. Background  Small country with small populations – both an advantage and a disadvantage  Few MNC’s dominating the private sector – Oil Company, Banks – and technologically tends to be advance in its operations  Relatively undeveloped SME’s  Two Service Providers (one is semi-government)  Many interested local vendors mostly acting as agencies to well-known hardware and software companies

3. Challenges  Economy dominated by the government  ICT development necessitate government funding and private sector relying on eGovernment initiatives  The government approach is “tentative” initially for appropriate reasons – Asian crisis, increasing unemployment – and yet CHANGE is inevitable. But change must be supported by appropriate framework and mind set change  Lack of economies of scale may prove a disadvantage for private sector development  Projects implementation tends to be hindered by human resource issues

4. HR Issues  Government sector reach saturation point and necessitate capping of numbers  Private sectors ask to absorb numbers of school leavers and graduates  Unattractive remunerations in private sector vis-à-vis the government sector prove to be a challenge  Private sectors rely on government projects  Government ICT “pace” may hinder private sectors HR development.  Capping of government numbers however means outsourcing of activities is inevitable.

5. Challenges in bridging rural digital divide  The village head is normally a ‘senior’ person of the village and not IT literate. The younger generation tends to migrate to the major district because of work opportunity and those remained in the rural areas are older generations.  Affordability – Prices of internet access in Brunei is still considered high relative to its neighbours. The older rural folks purchasing priority is not on internet access.  Availability – Most of the broadband development are centered in big major towns/cities.  Reliability – The main provider is struggling to make the system reliable in the major towns/cities that the rural areas is given low priority. How relevant is this issue to Brunei in the short term?

6. Way Forward  In implementing technology, there should be one champion ‘agency’ with proper authority to effect change  Do not “replicate” the current processes but take the opportunity re-engineer the business processes and compliment it with structural organisational change  For the long-term development of the private sectors in ICT, strategic decision should be made to select a few of the able companies and give them the jobs of implementing the ICT project rather than on an open tender basis. This will allow them to develop their manpower and allow for successful outsourcing by the government.

7. Way forward….. continued  Change Management is key to a successful implementation of eGovernment  Learn from the country that have gone through process and succeeded