Using the Internet as a strategic business tool

This article discusses the potential benefits of using the Internet to conduct business — to boost business productivity and to enhance business competitiveness. Six key Internet tools and how they can be used to support online commerce are briefly introduced. Ways in which businesses are capitalising on the use of the Internet as a major strategic tool for commerce are described. The extent to which local firms in Singapore are tapping into the Internet to increase business profitability is also outlined. While there are currently some problems hampering a more widespread adoption of Internet commerce, chief of which is the issue of security, there is nevertheless determined and concerted effort to resolve these.