Ireland advances in e-readiness rankings 2009
- Ireland moves up into 18th position in the Economist Intelligence Unit's e-readiness rankings for 2009. Moving 3 ranks up compared to 2008, Ireland now joins the e-readiness 'Established Leaders' with a score of 7.84 out of 10.
- Denmark is the global leader in e-readiness with a score of 8.87
- Ireland has made a lot of progress in 'connectivity' since 2008 but broadband penetration and internet user penetration still remain relatively low.
- European countries Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway have reaffirmed their places among the top ten e-readiness countries. Meanwhile, USA and UK, whose business environments have been hit particularly hard in the past year, have fallen a few rungs.
- Globally, the scores of all but nine of the 70 countries in the study decline in 2009. The introduction of tighter criteria in the measuring of 'consumer and business adoption' has had a mitigated effect on Ireland’s overall score.
A country’s “e-readiness” is a measure of how amenable their market is to Internet-based opportunities, a collection of factors including such as literacy, education, Internet experience, Government policy, entrepreneurial attitude, and innovation are used to calculate the scores. Increasingly, it is also about how individuals and businesses consume digital goods and services.
“More than ever before, 2009 will in hindsight be seen as 'The year of truth’,” says Peter Korsten, Global Leader of the IBM Institute for Business Value. “Those countries that invest aggressively, competitively and wisely in ramping up connectedness and usage of the Internet and that create and drive innovative content and services will reap the benefits for many, many years to come.”
Since 2000, the Economist Intelligence Unit has published an annual e-readiness ranking of the world’s largest economies, using a model developed in co-operation with the IBM Institute for Business Value.
Full report: "E-readiness rankings 2009: The usage imperative"
How the scores are derived
Over 100 quantitative and qualitative criteria, organised into six distinct categories, feed into the e-readiness rankings. The six categories (and their weight in the model) are connectivity and technology infrastructure (20%); business environment (15%; the nine indicators used here summarise the 74 sub-indicators covered by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s business environment rankings); social and cultural environment (15%); legal and policy environment (10%); government policy and vision (15%); and consumer and business adoption (25%).
The data used in the rankings are sourced from the Economist Intelligence Unit, Pyramid Research, the World Bank, the World Intellectual Property Organisation and others. We are also grateful to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) for their permission to incorporate the country scores from its "e-participation index" (from the UN e-government survey 2008) in our e-readiness model.
Qualitative criteria are assessed by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s extensive network of country experts, and their assessments are reviewed by our top economists.
For more information on the methodology, please refer to the appendix of the report.
Contact
Jim O'Keeffe
IBM External Relations
E-mail: okeeffej@ie.ibm.com
Tel.: +353-1-8154124
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit in co-operation with the IBM Institute for Business Value