The Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP) has published a report on the www.web.gov.pl portal entitled “Development of the e-services sector worldwide“. This is the second edition of the publication. The report comprehensively presents the current state of e-business and showcases e-services that have the greatest growth potential in the coming years. The aim of the report was also to identify market niches offering the best conditions for the development of e-services. The authors of the publication are employees of the Institute of Logistics and Warehousing.
The electronic services market is developing very dynamically and independently of the industry. A further increase in new e-services that will limit and replace traditional services is to be expected. This is mainly due to convenient and constant access and the low cost of providing e-services. Providers strive to ensure that the user can get more, in the shortest possible time, and using an increasingly intuitive interface. A modern e-service must also be focused on community, originality, and individualism. New possibilities for location and identification of image and sound allow for the creation of new services, offering their users new channels of contact. It is already possible to “talk” to a computer assistant, although its capabilities are limited. However, this form of communication may dominate all devices in the future. The offered web solutions eliminate problems related to the cooperation of different systems, additionally offering access to data, regardless of the location and communication channel. The expansion of internet infrastructure and the entry of innovative devices into the market have a huge impact on the development of e-services. An example of this is the increase in the popularity of smartphones thanks to new, previously unknown e-services. The appearance of subsequent devices may change the electronic services market, and even the way of life of societies.
The 2012 report “Development of the e-services sector worldwide”, published on behalf of the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development, contains a catalog of electronic services provided mainly on the Internet. Each chapter describing a category of e-services contains a description of the general state of the industry and development trends of e-services associated with it. Next, the reader can familiarize themselves with the description of e-services from a given category and compare selected e-services included in the report. All of them, regardless of the networks in which they are provided, have been described in the same structure, because the global trend boils down to offering an e-service accessible via various devices and networks. Potential customers often have several devices at the same time (e.g., smartphones, computers, laptops, tablets, smart TVs). In this situation, they will not adapt the e-service to the devices they own, but will choose them based on their functionality, expecting them to work on each of these devices.
The 2012 report also contains analyses and summaries of the e-services catalog. Those interested can find out what support opportunities exist for micro and small enterprises operating in the market of services provided in electronic form (POIG 8.1 – measures implemented by PARP).
– The report can be particularly helpful when describing the competitive environment for people applying for a grant from measure 8.1 of the Innovative Economy Operational Programme (PO IG), i.e., when obtaining funds to support business activity in the field of the electronic economy – encourages Paweł Skowera from PARP, one of the authors of the publication’s substantive concept.
The final part of the publication also contains a description of niche services in Poland and worldwide and presents the perspective of their development. The report has also been enriched with conclusions and recommendations.
The full version of the report is available on the website: www.web.gov.pl/e-booki/272_1789.html