Get ready for global electronic commerce. . .
The CSPP Guide to Global Electronic Commerce Readiness is a resource that can be used to determine how ready a business, state, country - or any community - is for global electronic commerce. Simply put, the Guide is a matrix featuring 22 categories of readiness and 4 different sets of benchmarks that range from basic readiness to advanced readiness. We have converted the matrix to a Web-friendly format - you can assess your community using the online version of the Guide by clicking here. Or you can order a hard copy version of the Guide by clicking here.

The online version of the Guide is meant to give you a quick feel for the assessment tool. Completing the CSPP Readiness Guide requires knowledge about a wide range of information in a community, including information about infrastructure, how people use technology, and planning. Once you have completed the online version of the Guide and understand the scope of the questions and the way in which it can be used to help your community, you may want to use the Guide to convene experts in your community to complete a more thorough readiness assessment.

The Guide is not a measure of a community's status or a prescription for technology or public policy. It is, instead, a resource any community anywhere can use to determine its existing technology and policy readiness profile, and to develop and implement a community-wide strategy for increasing readiness.

Set the stage for what's to come. . .
The Guide to Global Electronic Commerce Readiness sets the stage for consideration of a community's position along a continuum of global electronic commerce readiness. From the stage-one community with a minimum of the necessary technology and policy essentials, to the stage-four community that has very advanced technology and a supportive policy environment, the Guide provides a framework that can help direct discussions, drive decisions and produce results.

Using the Guide effectively requires the collection and analysis of a substantial amount of information. It will be most useful when used collaboratively by a coalition of community members concerned about the area's technological and economic development. Working together, community members can pool knowledge, data and experience to evaluate their common position, and to cooperatively produce a strategic plan.

The Guide is a dynamic tool developed with the intention that communities will tailor it to meet their individual needs. For example, the Guide contains relatively few quantitative benchmarks in part because technology changes so rapidly that benchmarks set today will be irrelevant tomorrow, and in part because certain benchmarks will not apply to some communities. Users of the Guide should not limit themselves to considering only what is in the current matrix. If users can develop more explicit benchmarks or produce more concrete data to gain a better understanding of the ability of the community to participate in global electronic commerce, they should do so.

Go get the information you need. . .
The Guide will inform and educate, as well as provide communities with information they need to take action. By using it, community and business leaders, as well as policy makers, will learn how their communities are progressing toward global electronic commerce, as well as get some information that will guide in the development of a community-wide action agenda. Because the Guide is not a definitive measure of a community's readiness, but rather a series of indicators, any self-defined community - whether an individual business, town, region, state or country - may find that it falls within one category based on some indicators and another category based on others. Every community is unique, so a mixed reading is not unusual. Nevertheless, the Guide provides every community with information it can use to take action as it gets ready for global electronic commerce.