How Networked Is The World?
The much awaited annual Global Information Technology Report from the World Economic Forum was released last week. Brought out in collaboration with Europe’s INSEAD Business School, the report highlights the critical advances made by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) worldwide. It maps the extent of digital networking achieved by nations in different economic groups, the convergence of ICT with digital media, and its role in bringing about economic sustainability.
The Networked Readiness Index (NRI) is one of the highlights of the report that shows the technology readiness of nations across the world. Though the small and sophisticated technology nations of Sweden and Singapore, take the top two spots, the large populous nations of China and India have maintained the trend of leapfrogging competition and moving ahead.
While the US moved down two paces to be 5th this year with a NRI score of 5.46, China moved up to the 37th spot with a score of 4.31, a notch above the wealthy and extensively net-worked Saudi Arabia. India moved up by a spectacular 11 positions to the 43rd spot with a score of 4.09 leapfrogging several highly networked nations like Italy, Thailand and Oman.
The calculation of NRI by the WEF is based on 3 basic criteria’s. The environment comprising of market environment, political and regulatory environment and the infrastructure environment. The readiness made up of individual readiness, business readiness and Government readiness to use information technology, and finally the actual usage by these three user groups.
In short the NRI index is the prime indicator of a nations accessibility and usage of the global communication network through all traditional and digital media including television, internet and mobile phone technologies.With mobile users growing double digit each year and surpassing the 4 billion mark, the NRI is due to change rapidly in the oncoming years.
China and India are expected to be among the top 20 networked nations of the world soon, only due to the rapid growth of mobile users, changing the dynamics of global supply and demand radically. This will not only open up new markets but also intensify competition across the globe, and create new business leaders, in a closely networked world.
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