Internet commerce in Venezuela 2001

Commerce through Internet in Venezuela 2001

Introduction

In recent years, the Venezuelan economy has realized beyond expectations. A shrinking budget, low interest rate ratios, low, unstable macroeconomic environment, expanding international trade with barriers, and effective private sector leadership are all credited with playing a role in this healthy economic performance.

Many observers believe that advances in information technology, driven by the growth of the Internet, has contributed to creating this a fast and reliable economy. Some have even suggested that these advances create a long "boom" that will take the economy to new heights for the next fourth century. Other economists remain skeptical of the contribution of e-commerce to global productivity by industry. There is limited direct evidence as yet, in government data that investments in IT have substantially increased productivity.

The recent rapid growth of the Internet is in part attributable to its strength as a medium of communication, education and function, and, more recently, as a tool for electronic commerce. Virtual businesses in every sector of the economy are beginning to use the Internet to cut the cost of purchasing, manage supplier relationships, streamline logistics and inventory, plan production, and reach new and existing customers more effectively.

Economies of cost, increased consumer choice, and improved consumer convenience are the growing trends in the sale of physical goods and in the digital delivery of goods and services via the Internet.

"Trade through the Internet"

Everything seems to indicate that we will witness an epic battle between traditional merchants and those who offer us their merchandise with a simple click. There can be no doubt about the intensity of this war, although electronic commerce is still a fraction of the total number of transactions that will take place from now until Christmas.

The winner will be the consumer; As competition intensifies, prices drop and service quality improves. But whether the increase in sales translates into higher profits remains to be seen. Stores adored by investors for the huge number of loyal customers it attracts to their website has so far only shown that the more they sell the more they lose. And if investors come to think that there are no gold bars at the foot of the rainbow, there will be less e-commerce at Christmas next year.

Because the Internet is new and its applications are developing very rapidly, reliable economy-wide statistics are hard to find. Extensive research is needed. This report uses industry and company examples accordingly to illustrate the quick pace that Internet commerce is unfolding and the benefits being understood. Examples that show the growth of the Internet and electronic commerce this last year are numerous:

If the trends suggested by this preliminary analysis continues, e-commerce can be expected to handle economic growth for many years to come. To understand this potential, however, the private sector and governments must work to create a predictable, market-managed legal framework to facilitate electronic commerce together; to create non-bureaucratic means that ensure that the Internet is a safe environment; and to create human resource policies that equip students and workers with the skills necessary for jobs in the new digital economy.

How do I buy?

The procedure is extremely simple. You have to visit the stores that offer the product and compare the prices. After selecting the products you want ("shopping cart"), enter your information and address, then your credit card number and you will have your product in your house depending on the location of the store. If the store is outside Venezuela, your products will arrive in three weeks, although this always depends on the shipping service. Most online offer you responsibility at the time of delivery.

The Digital Revolution

E-commerce between businesses: Businesses started using the Internet approximately two years ago for business transactions with their business partners. Users early already report the significant productivity improvements of using electronic networks to create, buy, distribute, sell service products.

Digital delivery of genre and services: Software programs, newspapers, and music CDs no longer need to be packaged and delivered to stores, houses or newsstands. They can be delivered electronically over the Internet. The airline sells tickets and the effect transactions through the Internet already occur in large numbers. Other industries such as call-to-service, function, banking and insurance, education and health care face some barriers but it is also starting to use the Internet to change the way they do business. Over time, the sale and transmission of gender and services is electronically likely to be the largest and most visible driver of the new digital economy.

Detail sale of tangible goods: The Internet can also be used to requesting tangible goods and services that are produced, can be saved and physically can be delivered. Although Internet sales are less than 1 percent of total retail sales today, sales of certain products such as computers, software, automobiles, books, and flowers are growing rapidly.

Traditional Businesses Face The Challenge Of Adapting To The Internet.

The network of networks implies a radical change in consumption patterns and, although it is a process that may take five years to consolidate, those who wish to succeed in tomorrow's economy must make decisions now.

An undeniable truth of this last decade of the century is that the Internet has meant a revolution, not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of how to approach and materialize human and commercial relations.

That old saying that distance kills the relationship was outdated thanks to the Internet. Likewise, the face-to-face shopping experience is in the process of being displaced, at least in some markets, by the facilities provided by the network for commercial transactions.

The Internet, little by little, changes the parameters in different areas of daily life and in business, marketing and brand building are no exception. In this sense, it is important to note that there is no successful transfer on the network. In other words, a traditional company does not necessarily have good results when it is launched in the online format…

Internet Trading Between Businesses

Internet commerce is growing faster among businesses. It is used for coordination between the purchasing operations of a company and its suppliers; the logistics planners in a company and the transport companies that warehouse and move their products; sales organizations and wholesalers or retailers who sell their products; and the customer repairs and maintenance operations and the last customers of the company.

Commercial use of computers quickly spread as companies in a variety of industries used them to keep accounting majors, payroll, create management reports, and schedule production.

In the 1970s, businesses extended their computing power beyond the walls of the company, sending and receiving purchase orders, invoices and shipment notifications electronically via EDI (Electronic Data Exchange). EDI is a standard for compiling and transmitting information between computers, often on top of private communication networks called value-added networks (moving carts). The 1980s also brought the introduction of computer-aided plan (SINVERGÜENZA), computer-aided engineering (CAE), and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) systems that allowed engineers, designers, and technicians to access and work on plan specifications,while designing drawings and technical documentation via internal corporate communication networks.

The cost of installation and maintenance of Moving Cars published electronic communication of the scope of many small and medium businesses. For the most part, these businesses relied on the facsimile and telephone for their business communications. Even larger companies that often used EDI did not understand the full potential economies because many of their business partners did not use it.

The Internet makes e-commerce economical to even the smallest home office. Companies of all sizes can now communicate with each other electronically, over the public Internet, networks for company-use only (the intranets) or for use by a company and its business partners (the extranets), and value networks private aggregates.

The growth of business-to-business e-commerce is being driven by lower purchase costs, inventory reductions, lower cycle times, more efficient and effective customer service, lower sales and marketing costs and new sales opportunities.

Lowest Purchase Costs

Purchasing materials or services for a corporation can be a complex, multi-step process. First, buyers have to find suppliers who make the product and determine if they meet volume, delivery, quality, and price requirements. Once a potential supplier has been chosen, detailed drawings and information are transmitted to the supplier so that the product is built to demand customer specifications. Assuming the product sample has been accepted and the supplier's industrial lines are ready for production, the buyer then transmits a purchase order (PO) for a gender-specific quantity. The buyer, meanwhile, receives notification from the supplier that the PO was received and confirmation that the order can be assembled.When the product ships from the supplier, the buyer receives notification, along with an invoice for delivered gender, again. The buyer's accounting section matches the invoice to the PO and pays the invoice. When it changes to the normal order, the frequent occurrence in most companies' processes can be much more complicated.

Companies with the lowest procurement costs consolidating purchases and developing relationships with major suppliers benefit from volume discounts and firmer integration into the industrial process. They also released a wide net price for lower-cost sources of supply.

Large companies have been using EDI on top of private networks to reduce labor, printing and shipping costs in the procurement process. Automating routine procurement means that procurement staff have more time to focus on negotiating good prices and building supplier relationships.

The Internet has the potential to vastly reduce the costs of procurement. Large companies benefit from lower transmission costs against private networks. The Internet also opens the door to doing business electronically with new providers and with small and medium-sized providers that previously only communicated via facsimile or telephone. Small companies also benefit. The Internet reduces the process costs and opens new sales opportunities for potential buyers who announce the demands for offers on the Internet.

Procurement via the Internet is new enough that projecting economy-wide economies or other profits are difficult. Specific company examples suggest that its potential is large and growing. For example, the General Electric lighting division reports significant gains in sensitivity, improved service, and reduced labor and material cost as a result of shifting the purchase from a primarily manual to an electronic system using Internet protocols.

Factories to the General Electric Lighting division sent hundreds of appointment requests (RFQs) to the corporate sourcing section each day for low-value machine parts. For each request, the accompanying cyanotics had to be ordered from storage, retrieved from the vault, transported on site, photocopied, folded, tied to paper the petition forms with the quote sheets, filled in the envelopes and sent by mail out. The process took at least seven days and was so complex and time-intensive that the sourcing section typically only sent bid packages to two to three suppliers at a time.

Previously, more than one out of four invoices had to be investigated and "reworked" to reconcile them with purchase orders and receipts. With the electronically managed transaction starting to finish, invoices are now automatically reconciled with purchase orders, reflecting any modifications that happen along the way.

Material costs have been rejected by 1 to 20 percent as the ability to reach a wider base of online providers created more competition and led to lower prices.

Another report from the companies plans to use the Internet for procurement. An out of four purchasing managers expect to use the Internet for MRO purchases, out of 10 percent who use it for that purpose.

The longest it takes for production schedules to locate suppliers, the most inventory a company has to hold to account for delays and errors, and it can quickly react to changes in demand.

The more inventory a company holds, the higher its operating costs, and the lower its profits. Carrying more inventory does not ensure good customer service, either. Shelves weighed down with size-10 running shoes do not help the customer wearing a size 8. When a customer enters a furniture showroom looking for an armchair with green and white stripes and is said to be in the back-order for 12 weeks, he can drive a competitor through town instead of waiting.

Managing inventory itself results in good service for the customer and lower operating costs for the company. Increasing the frequency of inventory "comes back" (the number of times inventory in existing warehouse or store space is sold or used for production each year) reduces inventory-related interest, handling and cost of storage. Reducing inventory also levels media that existing industrial capacity is used more effectively. More efficient production can reduce or eliminate the need for additional investments in plant and equipment.

IBM Personal Systems Group provides an illustration of how the Internet and private networks are helping companies to keep inventory stocks smaller, still more targeted at likely consumer needs.

Every month, the group is marketing sections reporting information on how many PCs they think will be sold. The production planning sections identify manufacturing and material capacity in each factory. Armed with inputs from the company on demand and supplies, production schedules are assigned to each factory. Procurement personnel use the same information to negotiate with providers. When new information comes in for each week, the process repeats itself and the production schedule is fine-tuned.

Electronic communication between factories, marketing and purchasing sections have made this quick reply possible. Problems are reported when they get up and appropriate adjustments are made. If it demands surveys suddenly or if a factory cannot meet its production schedule, IBM is in time aware of it increasing production at another factory.

Generalization And Integration Of Commerce Through The Internet In Social Uses

In the opinion, the growth curve of the expectations of Internet businesses will be decreasing from now on, due to the knowledge that we already have about this tool.

For the person in charge of Gartner, so far the expansion of electronic commerce and e-business is almost exponential due to the appearance of technologies that have allowed the birth of Internet commerce. However, Solía pointed out that once this second phase of lowering expectations and the establishment of electronic commerce has been overcome, a phase of sustained and progressive growth will be reached that will culminate in a period of six to eight years with the generalization of Internet use as a trade vehicle.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE '.COM'

The executive of Gartner Group Iberia highlighted what has already been heard abundantly in recent times, that those companies that shortly –he pointed out in 2005– are not present on the Network simply “will not be”. He used to explain that this will not mean their disappearance, but that they will lose the opportunity to find a prominent place in electronic commerce.

"We are facing a Copernican revolution," in the sense that traditional trading habits have changed and that their reversal is impossible, since electronic commerce is seen as "the next world growth machine," he said.

The Internet world is "overloaded with emotions and undervalued in its reality," that is, there is great expectation of what new information technologies can offer, Solía said. For the manager, this could act against electronic commerce itself, since he recalled that online business "is neither easy nor cheap, but it is not optional."

'E-Business', 'E-Commerce'

Thus, José Luis Solía wanted to highlight that what has become widespread on the Internet so far is a first phase of redoing processes, which has meant using the Internet machine as a mere e-commerce tool '), that is, buying Online sales. However, the next step will be to rethink the business and redefine it, both concepts that encompass the strategy of 'e-business' and that goes beyond the mere possession of a website, but "integrating the Internet into all the productive processes of the company ».

In this sense, Solía explained that although electronic commerce has revolutionized the service industry and has had a lesser effect on the goods production industries, 'e-business' will have the opposite effect since it will be in these latter industries where will cause the greatest structural changes.

Heart of Electronic Commerce

For the majority of Internet users, and especially those of us who shop online, the fact that we are entrusting important information, including our credit card number, goes unnoticed. The first time we buy online, we doubt the security of the systems, and this doubt remains in our subconscious every time we "Accept" a new purchase. This situation has been studied by the large online service providers and related companies, and that only from approximately 1996 onwards, the Internet became a simple advertising medium, in which users accessed sites and browsed through product catalogs, to an effective means of trade, in which money, in its various forms, changes hands in a safe, fast and reliable way.This exchange, only file possible from the birth of protocols that allow reaching a secure connection level. (Secure Socket Layer Protocol or SSL). With the development or support of the protocol by Internet browsers, financial transactions became viable, and the information exchanged between the parties, although it may be lost or deteriorated totally or partially, reaches its destination privately and incorruptible. The most important achievement of the protocol is to provide privacy and trust between the communicating parties. The protocol allows the server and the user to authenticate and negotiate between both parties an encryption algorithm and cryptographic keys, before any information is transmitted or received. That is, once online and having decided to do the operation,the browser connects to a "Secure" Internet server, which has been authenticated or validated by a third party certified for this purpose. The secure server uses its private key and generates a secure connection session with the user; the browser decodes the key sent by the server and if it decrypts correctly, this means that only that server could have sent said key. Having established the above, a secure channel or connection is opened, and all the information that is crossed between the parties will be encrypted or protected. In addition to the protection of the information transmitted between both parties, there are other matters of similar or greater importance, such as the information that the sites obtain from the users, without their consent;the security that service providers give to the information they obtain from their clients; or the security measures that service providers must implement to be certain of the legitimacy of the user who access them. However, none of the situations mentioned would exist if a secure and reliable exchange such as that provided by SSL is not possible.

Electronic commerce has evolved extraordinarily, and its rate of unsustainable growth has put aside its regulations and rules of conduct, which are being developed in parallel, both nationally by some countries, and internationally by multinational groups and organizations. Companies and individuals must be informed of the security measures surrounding their electronic commerce transactions, in order to determine the extent of the legal responsibilities of each party participating in the operation.

It is recommended, before subscribing to any "on-line" trade service (Banks, Supplies, etc.), to find out what security system is used in data management, to avoid information leaks and loss of goods, such as electronic money, purchased goods, confidential information, etc. The majority of users of online services are impressed with the strengths and offers of each provider, without examining the risks that some of these operations may generate, the risks of which, in some cases, have not even been evaluated by them. Service providers. Taking a short time to find out the above will avoid surprises for users.

Online Store Report

Value Brand

In operation since November last year, LoCompro.com (www.locompro.com) can be considered as the most outstanding experience in electronic commerce in Venezuela. It constitutes a business unit of SpeedNet, a company dedicated to the design, hosting and administration of web pages.

With more than 7,000 sessions of access to its pages each month, this store manages an offer of 3,000 products that generate a volume of sales per month close to $ 4,000. Its suppliers include the bibliographic editions of the lesa, the Tomos publishing house, Twilight Fauna, musical compacts, CD-ROM of the Andrés Bello Catholic University, videos from Bolívar Films and Cinesa, musical scores and instruments by Reinaldo Gautier, some handicrafts, and they are partners of Amazon.com. They are also about to launch some titles from Monte Avila Editores, flannels made by Documento Collection, and computer products from the company Telecom SI.

Its entire operation is geared towards meeting the needs of a well-defined market niche: the Spanish-speaking urban professional group, informed and personal computer user, connected to the Internet, and credit card holder. The LoCompro.com offer includes products and services with a price range between 5 and 200 dollars, easy to handle and distribute. "We are targeting products that are not easily available and that move the interest of the Hispanic market," said Fernando Núñez, general manager of SpeedNet.

For Núñez, electronic commerce in Venezuela requires blindness on the Internet as the medium that will determine economic and social relations in the near future. "That is why we have understood that we are dealing with a business that cannot be measured by its profitability in the short term, but rather in the value associated with the LoCompro brand."

Becoming on the list of phenomena such as Amazon.com, or Starmedia, firms that, without having reached successful balances in their commercial management, managed to captivate the interest of international private capital, while the value of their shares astonished financial analysts, It is the goal that exalts the pioneers of this Venezuelan store.

While the dreams are coming true, LoCompro.com is moving towards the consolidation of its technological platform, until now built on SQL databases, and hosted in the United States. "Country that not only guarantees a business with fewer obstacles, but also adds the main backbone of the Internet, and provides much faster network communication."

Like almost all the pioneers of electronic commerce in the country, this store focuses its secure shopping environment on the SSL (Secure Socket Layer) standard, a system on which 90 percent of online purchases are made. Today the entrance to the arena of Venezuelan banks, with payment verification formulas under the SET (Secure Electronic Transactions) platform, opens a new option for greater security and support for operations under national currency. In this sense, Núñez reported that LoCompro is already working with Banco Mercantil to join the network of businesses that will be validated by this bank to support payments with credit and debit cards in bolivars.

In its internal dynamics, LoCompro does not manage inventories. The supplier of the product agrees to maintain a reserve that guarantees delivery compliance, which is coordinated by the store through the worldwide services of Fedex and DHL. Thus, when closing a sale on the commercial site, a communication goes directly to the manufacturer or supplier, where the merchandise is prepared and collected by the mail company that will take it to the hands of the final consumer. The sales revenue is then distributed, an amount of which LoCompro acquires a percentage through the intermediation.

Now, such an operation can be seen as a simple business, but it is not. Capturing the attention and trust of consumers who do not see the local offer on the Internet with good eyes is a difficult barrier to overcome. “Our fight has been to make purchases, rather than profitable purchases. For this we must manage prices that, even with the added cost of delivery, are lower than those present in the traditional market. The electronic medium saves costs in the value chain up to the consumer, but it is also a reality that distribution represents a specific weight that must be handled carefully to be competitive.

Another requirement is the added value that the site must bring. This store manages an affiliate program that already reaches 1,500, with additional discounts and a loyalty program with accumulation of points that are redeemable for money available when buying at the store. On the other hand, LoCompro.com has made alliances with online content generators, including PC World Venezuela as a specialized magazine, to provide its affiliates with an updated information channel on the network environment, the technologies of the information, and, of course, its news and offers.

Advertising is a tool that, according to Núñez, must be handled responsibly. “In our experience we have worked first to generate a

Consistent and attractive presence, consolidate an audience and operations that test our systems, and have an efficient business model. Then comes marketing, which is key, we started on the Internet itself, and with campaigns in specialized publications that sought to get people to join and buy ».

Now the challenges return to the consolidation of a technological platform that migrates from the SQL platform to a data management system with Oracle technology. Once this support is achieved, the future imposes greater marketing challenges for the consolidation of LoCompro.com as a brand. The goal at the end of 1999: an audience of 200,000 sessions per month, more than 70,000 affiliates, and monthly sales of $ 14,000. "We want to be a mandatory sales channel for those who share our market," said Núñez.

THE SECURITY DILEMMA

Beyond the entrepreneurial drive of those who bet on electronic commerce in Venezuela, the distrust of the local market in the face of the possibility of fraud in transactions is a real obstacle. Bernardo Beyer, director of the Venezuelan company NetCommerce (www.netcommerce.com.ve), affirms that a "well-established virtual store can be safer than any physical establishment". For the online merchant, the marketplace provides anti-fraud solutions that can support credit card payments.

NetCommerce offers an SSL protocol solution that encompasses digital certification and data encryption for credit card payments. This is Gíobalpay, a system that verifies the identity of the buyer and their credit card, while it can work together with other IP address verification packages, as a level of security, to guarantee "a level of fraud less than one percent, "says Beyer.

However, more than half of Venezuelan Internet users are afraid of entering data about their credit card to execute a purchase. Juan Manuel Raftalli, partner of the legal desk, and director of the Venezuelan Chamber of Electronic Commerce (Cavecom-e), affirms that as an activity, electronic commerce finds a natural scenario in the regulations established by the Commercial Code in force in Venezuela.

But e-commerce also draws attention to laws on consumer protection, customs, fiscal and tax regime, intellectual property, as well as the obligations suggested by the agreements signed by Venezuela on international trade.

The technological variables imposed by electronic commerce incorporate a new "electronic and non-tangible" nature in the commercial contract established between the parties. "In these relationships where there is no face-to-face relationship between who sells and who buys produces a problem about the certainty of the deal," says Raffalli.

Such situation does not find an answer to the lack of provisions in Venezuela that recognize the practices of electronic commerce and enable the legal handling of controversies. "We do not have in the country a legal system of commercial arbitration to resolve disputes in this matter," adds Raffalli.

Thus, from the Anzola Legal Desk, Bóveda & Rodríguez (www.abrr.com.ve) has generated a legal trend that is already echoed in the recently created Cavecom-e, and which focuses on the design of a regulation that dictates Basic rules of understanding and practice of e-commerce in Venezuela.

Now, a regulation of this nature involves an integration of the State in the technological dynamics that this scenario of digital exchange implies, through organizations such as the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Ministry of Justice, the latter rector of national guidelines on civil and commercial law. For this reason, Raffalli recognizes the modernizing challenge that this economic reality imposes on the State.

As a solution to this circumstance of legal vacuum, the proposed regulation is erected, concentrating on an electronic invoice technological model promoted before the Fedecámaras Modernization Commission, with the active support of Cavecom-e.

José Vivas, director of Terbrain Communications (www.terabrain.com) and founding member of cavecom-e, explains that electronic invoicing incorporates an appropriate tool for the existing digital environment among national companies and guarantees a transparent flow of information between the actors in the process: the supplier of goods, the buyer, the Seniat and the customs authorities. “Under this concept, new entities emerge, such as the Venezuelan certification authorities, in charge of recognizing practices such as digital signatures, electronic registration, and public and private keys. The application constitutes a technological innovation in itself by incorporating secure procedures where records of the agreements that travel through cookies to each instance of the commercial circuit are established.It also incorporates the online participation of import and export service operators, digital contracts and the novelty of cyber notaries, an e-commerce arbitration authority.

In times when the country is debating the creation of a new constitutional framework, the question is well worth asking: Are the conditions for the approval of regulations that promote electronic commerce in Venezuela given? Juan Manuel Raffalli, who is also the protagonist of the constitutional process, bets on a provision that arises from the agreement between the ministries of Justice and Industry and Commerce and that allows the necessary knowledge about this innovative Internet business scheme to be transferred to the judicial authorities.

Meanwhile, the lawyer recognizes the interest among legal actors, evident in the creation of a chair on electronic commerce in postgraduate studies in Commercial Law at the Central University of Venezuela.

MERCANTIL CERTIFICA

Banco Mercantil (www.bancomercantil.com) has well earned market recognition as a pioneer in the development of new services through the Internet. It was the first to venture into Internet banking with its Mercantil Online service, and investment services in the capital market through Merinvest's Internet trading model. In dealing with personal clients, at the end of 1998 this institution extended its online services to users of digital personal assistants (PDAs). And now the good news is that Banco Mercantil has the security platform ready to become a certifier and verifier of online commercial transactions.

Rodolfo Gasparri, vice president of informatics at Banco Mercantil, reported that this institution already has the SET (Secure Electronic Transactions) platform certified by Visa and Master to support the certification of merchants and cardholders in electronic commerce operations carried out in Venezuela. The technological model provided by IBM uses the NetCommerce platform as a mediator between the bank's central systems and the large cloud of the Internet. But while other banking applications require the client to receive digital certificates, or electronic wallets, compatible with the SET platform, Mercantil's online operation enables purchases from secure sites with SSL (Secure Socket Layer) standards, a format that today supports 90 percent of the online retail worldwide.This service will work like any point of sale (POS) that physically exists in the bank's network. Any virtual establishment will only have to affiliate with Mercantil's payment mediation services, and, as in the physical environment, the institution obtains profitability by capturing a commission on the amount of the transaction. Gasparri stressed that as it happens in physical media, these commissions will be determined based on the type of establishment, goods and services.These commissions will be determined based on the type of establishment, goods and services.These commissions will be determined based on the type of establishment, goods and services.

NETCOMMERCE

IBM (www.ibm.com) has been maturing the technological proposal of e-business for two years, a concept that today allows this provider to manage a wide range of options for companies interested in exploiting electronic commerce. The IBM formula ranges from software, hardware, to business reengineering, and includes the use of useful resources both for a virtual grocer and for the most complex transnational company or financial entity.

NetCommerce - in its Start, Pro and CHS versions - constitutes IBM's operating base for the design and operation of an electronic store. This system enables the interaction of the virtual sales site with the platforms available for business management: from complex solutions such as SAP R13 to ready-made systems for invoicing and inventory management.

Freddy Alves, manager of the IBM Software Unit, emphasizes that this system provides a comfortable structure for the administration of the store in terms of website hosting, management of the product databases and the visual design of the store. This interaction can be done remotely, and offers options for generating visit reports by product category, store sections, "in a kind of mining on the page data."

For the design of the product catalog, NetCommerce provides a tool for the creation of dynamic catalogs that allow the visiting consumer search interfaces on comparative variables such as prices, product type, among others. At the same time, this system can act as a tutor guiding the buyer through the options available in the store catalogs. The heart of this capability lies in the application of DB2 resources, the IBM database system from which it can evolve to more complex data processing schemes such as the datawarehouse. NetCommerce, as a payment server,it allows to design the interfaces of purchase for the visitor (under the metaphor of the shopping cart) and supports the security platform for payment systems under the SET (Secure Electromanic Tramansaction) standard for both credit or debit cards.

SAP RETAIL STORE

With R / 3 as the basic platform, SAP (www.sap.com) Retail OnLimane Store is a solution with applications for business to busimaness and business to comansumer sales through the Internet. With this, merchants can offer products online through the network and make purchases directly through the chain of suppliers of goods and supplies.

This solution can be used by the different actors that make up the supply chain: manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and couriers.

Additionally, manufacturers and wholesalers can take advantage of the SAP OmanLine Store for business to business and busimaness to consumer commerce.

SAP Retail OnLine Store offers the following advantages for making purchases online. A product catalog that works with AltaVista as a search engine for users to search thousands of articles and find specific products in minutes. The shopping basket allows items to be placed in the virtual shopping cart, and makes future purchases easier by assigning users a registration number.

Once the purchase is made, the price of the items is calculated with taxes, promotions, discounts, shipping cost, etc. Likewise, the availability of the products is checked and the delivery date is estimated. For payment, users can choose three modalities: billing, cash on delivery or credit card. Also, customers can check the status of order processing and delivery. This is done through the client's name, and a password.

José Luis Gascón, general manager of SAP Venezuela, points out that much can be done with this platform: both in the front end and in the back end. Currently, this solution is available for the Venezuelan market but with the limitations of security protocols. We still have to wait for the clients that will soon implement it.

ORACLE

Oracle (www.oracle.com) offers an integrated platform of products ranging from information publishing, personalization, search engine, transaction, and integration with ERP systems and vendors to inventory and distribution management. One of your star clients? Nothing more and nothing less than Amazoman.Com

The solution proposed by Oracie is Oracle 8i, a database that handles high volumes of information, facilitates omane to one marketing, enables the development and launch of applications, and enables Internet business. It is based on Java because it is the most robust language, it includes administration tools such as the Enterprise Manager, it works with the SSL security protocol and it supports different information formats: video, text, multimedia and audio. As José Antonio Madriz, Oracle technology consultant, points out: "Oracle's goal is to offer a complete platform for the development of electronic commerce."

One of the advantages of Oracle 8i is the Internet File System which makes information management easier and creates a new concept of files by maintaining and integrating the user's existing directories. Coman this will concentrate all the data in a single database, and the backup and administration are made easier.

Additionally, it includes the Appiication Server that allows the development of applications and the personalization of the site by users. Likewise, the Internet Commerce Server that facilitates business to business and busimaness to consumer sales, creation of stores, payment integration systems through CyberCash and security protocols.

It is estimated that the installation of the Oracle platform is complete in six months. The cost will depend on the needs of the store. However, the investment starts from $ 30,000 and up.

CONCLUSION

What specific technological innovation has marked in this century, and which will mark in the XXI century, the tourist industry?

-I have been working in computing since the 1960s, and the greatest technological impact that has occurred and will occur in society is the Internet. Last year, Internet Commerce totaled six billion dollars, and in about 10 years it will exceed one trillion dollars. The most important thing a country can do right now is to invest in telecommunications infrastructure. The Internet is what it is thanks to its "bandwidth": that is, it allows citizens to use the network for any purpose, from obtaining information to resolve a medical emergency or completing a humanistic or artistic investigation, to conducting commercial transactions. Access by the entire population to these benefits should be encouraged.

Until recently, one half of the world hardly knew the other. Now we are in danger contract: through the Internet, we can reach practically any corner of the planet. Imagine, in the not too distant future, a man who from his computer is able to know all the options he has on the planet to go on a trip, with the possibility of making reservations in all of them. From a tourist point of view, is there not a danger that thanks to computers all unexplored "paradises" will disappear, that there will be no place to discover or adventure to undertake?

Not at all. There will always be something new to discover, new adventures. Tourism entrepreneurs are always imaginative. For example, who would have thought, years ago, that someone would want to climb glaciers or rocks? Today there are specific tourist packages to learn to climb, and even artificial walls have been created for lovers of this sport. The topic that has been raised in the question reminds me of a seventeenth-century mathematician, who decided that he was going to know all the mathematics that existed then. He went crazy. This applies in any field, it is impossible to always be updated on everything. And each tourist place has something that makes it different. You have to emphasize that difference to be successful.