Scotland's new eCommerce focus

Intro: This post is the second in my series on the future of Scottish eCommerce, with the previous post here

Scottish Enterprise has recently pledged on its website:

"to increase focus on the e-commerce opportunity for Scotland and in particular, to focus on international e-commerce awareness, advice and support."

To support this focus and the Scottish Government's commitment to Scotland's Digital Future, it is now running a new programme to raise awareness of the eCommerce opportunities for Scottish companies and to help businesses north of the border to capitalise on digital commerce processes and technologies.

One parts of this programme was event run today labelled 'Effective e-Commerce: Reaching new markets online' and held in The Sheraton Hotel in Edinburgh. I went along to listen, to meet potential prospects, see the types of people attending and listen to the range of presenters giving their insight. The attendees seemed to range from one-man operations who have yet to properly venture into online sales, through to large companies who wanted to understand 'what happens next'... and everyone else in between.

What was clear from today's event was the obvious determination of many of the participants to make the most of the emerging eCommerce opportunities in Scotland. Yes, there was a lot of jargon and TLA's (three letter acronyms) being used at various points, but there was also a lot of useful advice given out, especially in the breakout session I attended in the afternoon.

On the downside though, I'm not convinced that these sorts of mixed-bag events are all that is required to move Scotland into a leading online retail region. What is also needed is other business support such as: eCommerce mentoring, a better skilled workforce and the ability for company eCommerce people to share and learn from each other in a positive environment.

Additional note:
I forgot to mention in this post that all attendees were given a copy of 'E-commerce Get It Right!'
http://www.amazon.co.uk/E-commerce-Get-Right-Strategies-Simplified/dp/0956526209
This has now been added to the company 'library' for future reference.