It is said in business that the only difference at times is one of method, not of purpose. Every business leader is focused on achieving the bottom line, some at whatever cost, as this is what is used to define their success.

Some business leaders will leverage their larger than life charisma and personalities to drive results. Others will skew their efforts towards using tools at their disposal to bring home the bacon. Still, others will focus on what has worked in the past for their businesses and industries and take a sceptical look at anything new that has not been “tried and tested”. It is within this context that a couple of us more inclined

to the ICT discourse were impressed the other day with President Kibaki’s endorsement of e-learning through a well publicised supplement in the press. The content of the supplement was very informative and exhilarating and gave us an idea of our country’s commitment to being a leading ICT hub in this part of the world.

It is appropriate to mention that Kenya is now a high speed internet environment due to the existence of a terrestrial fibre optic cable network connected to the global internet super highway through undersea cables. We should not forget that this major infrastructure initiative has been driven by visionaries within the government with

support from the private sector. The fact that the government has decided to drive and leverage technological innovation by leading from the front should be a key lesson that pockets of the private sector should emulate.

While the government is working hard to establish a high speed internet environment that is accessible to all, some business leaders still restrict their staff internet access and other web facilities.

As far as they are concerned, the Internet and allied are all potentially undesirable tools that threaten to disrupt the smooth flow of business.

It is therefore quite common to find that employees who are sent to local or global conferences that have an ICT or technical theme are mainly

from technical departments. Over time, their acquired knowledge and expertise results in a "digital divide" between themselves and their business leaders.
Depending on the disposition of their business heads, this perceived digital divide may be perceived as either a threat or an opportunity.

Business leaders who over delegate assessment of new technology innovations that are primarily driven by ICT platforms run the risk of lagging behind in gaining firsthand knowledge of tools that may prove useful to creating a strategic competitive advantage.
It is for this reason that a local leading consumer goods companys investment in an IT platform resulted in its phenomenal growth and subsequent acquisition of a large competitors busi ness. The CEO of the company had the vision and courage to take a risk on the emerging technology and innovations of the time. It is in this regard that business leaders should create the time to immerse themselves in technology or “geeky” environments which may give them a sense of where trends are headed and what the future is likely to look like. They may find that what they perceive as a major tactical problem in their execution of strategy could be mitigated by a tried and tested “social environment” already being used by a niche online community.

For example, it is a well known fact that many blue chip companies are still commissioning expensive research to find out what consumers think of their products when they could simply encourage the development of online blogs that would probably give them insightful information at a fraction of the cost.

In the same breath, we still have companies that send staff to expensive soft skills development courses in exotic locations abroad that could be delivered at a fraction of the cost through e-learning courses.

Borrowing a leaf from the government’s e-learning policy initiative, it is probably about time that we business leaders seriously considered establishing ICT as a strategic pillar in our current business plans.