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John Lamb's Week: Carly, Cary and getting ebusiness right
Which banking websites cut the mustard? On Monday testing firm Gomez spills the beans in its regular Credit Card Scorecard of online financial services. This time internet-only services such as cahoot, Egg and smile have outperformed the more traditional bricks and mortar firms such as Barclaycard.

By John Lamb

Published: Friday 08 June 2001

The principle factor differentiating the players, says Gomez, is the level of customer service. Both Egg and smile have relaunched their websites to improve usability. In comparison, the bricks and mortar services have been unable to maintain a consistently high level of support, while new entrants to the marketplace Bank of Scotland and MBNA have also fallen prey to below par service.

Carly Fiorina is in town on Tuesday to give her first speech in the UK as CEO of HP. The high-powered exec will be addressing the CBI Business Renaissance conference on the importance of company re-invention and the need for leaders to re-make themselves to force change. "The greatest risk is standing still," the fast moving chief will declare.

HP, in association with Professor Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisation Psychology at the Manchester School of Management, has conducted a study to identify and record the characteristics that inventive organisations display. One area that they need to look at, says Professor Cooper, is more careers coaching. Clearly, Fiorina needs none of that. At least not for now.

The current downturn seems to have eased the skills shortages in IT now that fewer projects are being started. However, the gap between demand and supply - especially in leading edge skills - has not gone away. In a timely move, the e-skills National Training Organisation (NTO) is launching on Tuesday a nationally promoted standard for defining skills that aid the recruitment, development and reward structure of an organisation's IT personnel.

The Skills Framework for the Information Age gives companies selling services or partnering on projects a set of credentials that will testify to their technical competence. The standard will promote equal opportunities, says the e-skills NTO, and it will also be offered to organisations outside the UK.

Also on a crowded Tuesday agenda Reza Chady, Global Head of Market Research at Nokia's 3G Research Centre, will be briefing analysts and journalists on the results of a European study of the prospects for m-commerce. You won't run screaming from your desk when I tell you that Chady's crystal ball says the technology is all set to reach a mass market.

Surprisingly, the study found that the number of people interested in using m-commerce is in some markets more than eight-fold the number of people actually using ecommerce today. The study also showed that nearly 90 per cent of people interested in using m-commerce services will also be willing to pay extra for the convenience of making purchases that way. Doesn't sound like the average British consumer to me.

Those ecommerce folks are not dead yet. Earlier this year Compaq asked some 400 IT directors about their use of and attitudes to ebusiness. On Thursday the company will be unveiling the results of its investigations with breakdowns by industry sector of just how ecommerce oriented British business is. Although Compaq is playing its cards close to its chest on the results, a spokesperson revealed to silicon.com that some industries were struggling with ebusiness. Hmmm.

Wednesday will see some of my colleagues at the famous Ivy showbiz restaurant in London courtesy of Integralis, which is talking about findings from its first Information Security Index. Published every February, June and October, the Index is a survey of IT decision-makers, aimed at finding out about information security in UK companies.

Are viruses really costing us millions? How often do hackers get in to UK companies? How many UK companies have really experienced cyber crime? What emerging cyber threats are companies seeing? These are just some of the questions Integralis promises to answer.

A quick round up of other notable goings on this week must include satellite company Inmarsat's launch of a new IP mobile data service for corporate users. The service will support IP compatible applications over a wireless network and operate alongside other IP networks.