Speech on E-Commerce
电子商务演讲
By Stephen Times
---斯蒂芬•蒂姆斯
There are compelling reasons for doing business electronically. Electronic links facilitate fast, effective communication, promoting the development of better business relationships, faster innovation and greater efficiency. Trading on the Internet promises greater market penetration, increased customer response, more flexibility and lower costs. Better and smarter working provides competitive advantage. Small businesses can forge closer relationships with customers and suppliers.
做电商有不可抗拒的原因。电子连接促进快速有效的沟通，提升跟好商业关系的发展，加快创新和效率。网络贸易市场渗透更大，增加顾客反映，灵敏度更高，成本更低。更聪明、更灵敏的工作提供了有竞争性的优势。小企业可以与客户和供应商建立更紧密的联系。
I recently presented the prizes in the e-commerce awards which are supported by the DTI through our UK Online for Business Project. The overall winner for the smartness of the way it had built its business around web capabilities was a small firm in Glasgow called Global Recycling. As I presented the award to the Managing Director, I asked him if any of his colleagues had come with him. His reply was "No, the other person had had to stay behind to keep the business going". There are in the knowledge economy immense opportunities for small and innovative firms.
我最近通过英国商业在线服务项目领取了由英国贸工部支持的电子商务奖励。这种智能方式的全部赢家是格拉斯哥一家名叫全球循环的公司，通过网站建立的企业。当我把奖品呈给总经理时，我问他有没有其他同事跟他一起时，他说“没有的，另一个人要呆在后面保持公司运营”。这对小型创新企业来说在知识经济方面有无限的机遇。
In the UK, the challenges facing us are clear. We need to exploit our superb science base and promote innovation to create world-class ideas, breakthrough technologies and high value businesses. I’m looking today at some great examples of that happening in the North East Firms need to master the art of innovation. Where product lead times are becoming shorter, companies need constantly to develop and adopt the best products and practices available.
在英国，我们面临的挑战是明确的。我们需要开发优先的科学基础，提高创新，建立世界级的理念，突破科技和高价值商业。我在东北看到了这样一些例子的发生。企业要掌握创新的艺术。产品推出所需时间变得越来越短，公司要持续开发使用最好的产品和体验。
Businesses need both to collaborate and to compete, to share ideas, to invest in research and development and to take informed risks. They need to take up the new digital technologies and exploit the opportunities of e-commerce The Prime Minister bas set a goal to make Britain the best place in the world to do e-commerce.
企业既要协作又要竞争，分享理念，投资研究和开发，考虑内在的风险。企业需要接受新的数码技术，利用电子商务的机遇。首相设定的目标是将英国打造成世界电子商务最好的地方。
One of my particular responsibilities at the Department is for the development of broadband communications. We have waited a long time in the UK to see benefits from telecommunications infrastructure competition, and we were slow to make a start with broadband. But, thanks to competition between the telephone and cable networks, we now have broadband prices among the most competitive in the world, and broadband connections being sold at 20 per week—roughly half and half between cable modems and telephony DSL connections- Last week, we were able to celebrate the one millionth broadband connection in the UK- Project North East was quick off the mark in equipping all its sites with broadband three years ago一boosting what has developed today into a cluster of 70 new media businesses.
我在部门的一个重要职责就是发展宽带的沟通。我们在英国等了很长时间以见证电子通讯基础设施竞争的利益，我们开启宽带步伐缓慢。但是感谢电话和网络电缆之间的竞争，我们现在的宽带价格是世界上最有竞争力的，宽带连接每周售价20英镑---现代电缆和电话DSL连接差不多各占一半。上周我们庆祝英国宽带连接突破一百万。东北项目三年起步快，所有地方都装了宽带---现在已发展成为拥有70家新媒体企业的地方。
Next month, a new Regional Broadband Unit will open for business. Working closely with the Regional Development Agencies and the Office for Government Commerce to co-ordinate public sector broadband procurement, its purpose will be to stimulate economic growth and enhance the delivery of public services. The new unit will work between public and private sectors to ensure best use is made of public sector purchasing and identify opportunities to aggregate public sector broadband demand f so maximizing the potential to extend the reach of broadband services.
下个月新的区域宽带单元将开始运作。我们将会与区域发展机构和政府商务部门紧密合作发展公共领域宽带的购买，目的是促进经济增长，增加公共服务的传送。新的单元会结合公共和私人领域，以确保公共领域购买的最好使用性，确认集合公共领域宽带要求的机遇，最大化延伸宽带服务的潜力。
The community will benefit from extended broadband services in important ways. Following the Chancellors budget announcements earlier this year, we will have funding in place for a new health services communications infrastructure. It will provide a faster network access to every doctor and to all support staff, and a larger bandwidth across NHSnet gateways. The result will be better local health services.
社区能极大的从延伸宽带服务中获益。根据今年早期内阁的预算，我们会在新的健康服务沟通基础设施领域获得资金，为每一名医生和支持员工提供更快的网络进入以及英国国民卫生服务部门在线通道更大的频带宽度，从而发展更好的地方健康服务。
Over 20% of schools in England now have broadband connections. This figure continuing to rise further as broadband services become more reachable. We will see more and more curriculum material online, improving the quality of teaching and learning, so that for example students will be able to follow online at their own pace courses for which there is insufficient demand in their school for a separate taught class.
超过20%的英国学校现在装有宽带连接，这一数据随着宽带服务增加也会不断增加。我们将会看到更多的课程材料上线，提高教学质量，学生在学校没有足够的资源进行单独教学时可以根据自己的学习节奏在线学习。
Nearly £ 50 million pounds of funding was announced recently for 64 partnership projects aimed at helping deliver better public services online. A number of them based on broadband services- Local authorities are making the most of new technologies in providing more accessible services of better quality to the public. All Britain public Jibraries offer Internet access today, and around a quarter of them offer broadband access.
旨在帮助传送更好公共服务在线的64家合作项目最近基金收入接近5000万英镑，其中一些是基于宽带服务。当地机构使用最新技术为公众提供获取更方便，质量更好的服务。现在英国所有的公共图书馆都提供网络进入，约有四分之一提供宽带进入。
If schools, surgeries and government offices in an area ail want to connect to broadband services, then suppliers can be persuaded to install broadband locally, so widening the infrastructure support at a local community level And it is interesting to see at the moment how local community campaigns around the country are proving effective in pressuring the suppliers to deliver broadband and marshalling the demand to make it worthwhile.
如果所有区域的学校，诊所和政府机构都相连接宽带服务，那就能劝说供应商到当地安装宽带，在区域社区水平增加基础设施支持。而且等全国当地社区运动增加影响迫使供应商传送宽带，把握需求使其有所值是很有趣的。
I believe the strategy we are following will give everybody the opportunity to benefit from the development of the digital economy. If you go into a Job Centre today, you will find not those awful old boards with scruffy little postcards about local jobs, but smart kiosks providing information in a much more respectful way about jobs not just locally but right across the country. Those kiosks are part of the reason why unemployment fell again last month, despite everything that is happening in the world economy, to the lowest level for nearly thirty years. That is a good example of how we can use the digital transformation of our economy to benefit those who have: been on the wrong end of the rich / poor divide in the past and ensure that we do not put a new digital divide in its place.
我相信我们执行的策略会让所有人有从数字化经济发展中获利的机会。如果今天走进就业中心，你发现的不是陈旧而又不干净的当地工作的小卡片，而是以更尊敬的方式提供有关当地和全国范围内的工作信息的柜台。这些柜台是上个月失业率又下降的原因，尽管世界经济的发展在过去近三十年间一直处于最低迷的状态。这是我们我们使用经济数字转换的典型例子，使过去处在贫富差别下游的人获益，确保不会有新的数字分割。
There will be many more community based benefits. Local medical centers, schools and libraries will all receive new and modem resources that the public can use. Opportunities for small scale companies and new services will provide benefits for all the community. Everyone has access to public libraries. Developments will be on a vast scale overall t but individually they will be small and local in their impact.
还有更多社区基础的利益。当地媒体中心，学校和图书馆能收到公众使用的新的现代资源。小规模公司和新服务的机遇能为所有社区获得好处。每个人都能进入公共图书馆。整体规模会有很大的发展，但单独来讲他们的影响又是小型，本土的。
And in the Government we are also working to match companies to community initiatives, which promote the hitmen The UK online partnerships programmer has helped develop several initiatives, including the partnership between Age Concern and Abbey National to provide Internet access for older people.
我们也努力在政府中斡旋让公司参与到社区主动性中，这样能提升网络。英国在线伙伴项目已经帮助发展了几家主动参与公司，包括关注年龄和阿比国民银行为老年人提供网络进入的合作。
So the Government’s vision is to see private and public sector organizations in the UK take account of their economic, social and environmental impact, and takecom-plementary action to address key challenges based on their core competence一locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.
因此政府的意图是让英国的私营和国有区域机构能够发挥经济，社会和环境影响，采取相应的措施在自身核心竞争力的基础上应对重要挑战---地方地，区域地，国家地，国际地。
When I started my work at the DU in May, one of the things I came across in my; reading material was a remarkably prescient article from 1968 written by the American Internet pioneer JCR Licklider. Writing then about what he called the "interconnected electronic network", he said that it would prove to be a tremendous boon to; mankind But, he said, whether that potential was realized or not would depend on whether "to be online" was "a privilege or a right".
我五月份开始英国贸工部的工作时，阅读材料遇到的一件事就是1968年美国网络先驱JCR力克里德写的一篇有先见的文章。他当时写道“内部连接的电力网络”，他说这将对人类有极大的好处。但他又说道这一潜能能否实现取决于“上线”是“一项特权还是一项基本权利”。
The concern he raised is a pressing one today, 34 years later. And what we can see today is that we all need to work together—corporates acting in a responsible way, Government and public organizations—to ensure that access to the digital economy will not be a privilege for a few, but will be an opportunity extended to every single person in our society. And we need to work together to achieve that.
他提出的担忧也是34年后现在紧迫的问题。我们今天能看到的是我们需要一起努力---大公司负责任，政府和公共机构---确保数字经济入口不是少数一些人的热泉，而是社会中每个人都有的机会。我们需要一起努力实现这一目标。