Getting good advice for e-commerce
Business advisors have probably been around since business of advice was first thought of. Yet the rapid development of e-commerce technologies and its impact on the overall business environment has meant that all too often, the advice business is getting, has all too often, not been sound. With this in mind, a partnership has developed between municipalities, regional development agencies and private companies from the UK, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Ireland in order to make sense of a fast growing labyrinth of information. The resulting USHER project has several ambitious goals in mind, one of which is an attempt to bridge the divide between the diverse pan-European practices. By drawing in both public and private concerns from a wide range of countries, USHER hopes to be able to provide services that'll aid business advisors improve their services. Another goal is to localise and streamline the enormous volume of information into a cohesive aide. Information of e-commerce is both confusing and conflicting in nature. The USHER project sought to make it possible to fill the gaps that business advisors evidently had concerning their e-commerce background. Part of the problem concerning e-commerce ventures revolves around the basics, such as know-how, security and implementation strategies. The USHER project sought to address these issues through the establishment of a website whereby advisors and business developers could attain information, training, counselling additional case studies as well as e-business evolution scenarios. The success of USHER can be seen in the volume of traffic their website had generated since its launch and the wide range of interest from both Western and Eastern Europe. The USHER project's tool-kit is designed specifically for advisors rather than SME's, so the volume of traffic they've had shows a growing interested in a uniform, cohesive e-commerce advisory platform.
