An Environment for E-Commerce and ICT Enabled Logistics Services in Rural Areas of Transition Countries: The Case of South

Africa
S. M. Muniafu
Delft University of Technology Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft The Netherlands +31 15 278 7184

Els van de Kar

Delft University of Technology Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft The Netherlands +31 15 278 1141

Johann van Rensburg

Citizens Information Services, CSIR ICOMTEK, Box 395, Pretoria, South Africa 0001 +27 12 841 3321

s.muniafu@tbm.tudelft.nl ABSTRACT

elsk@tbm.tudelft.nl

jvrensbu@csir.co.za

A lot has been done regarding the deployment of e-commerce and logistics solutions in rural areas, but despite of these efforts one still encounters the ineffectual and unsustainable application of ICT-enabled logistics services. The developers of such services for rural areas lack readily available supportive tools and methodologies. This paper identifies the need for a support environment for the development of ICTenabled logistics services in rural areas based on the concept of a so-called design studio, which uses simulation models and collaboration technology to facilitate the design. The paper describes the logistics situation in rural South Africa, analyses the current ideas to enable this with ICT, and provides the requirements for such a studio. The concepts presented in this paper and the accompanying discussions are part of findings of the diagnostic stage of inductive case studies, and will be built further in the next steps of the research.

community centres. Despite of all these efforts van Rensburg [personal communication] notes that one still encounters the ineffectual and unsustainable application of ICTs. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR: http://www. csir.co.za) is heavily involved in these initiatives and has developed both ICT tools as well as their deployment models. The aim of the research is to determine how an environment can be created, to be used in supporting the decisions involved in the development of ICT-enabled logistics and e-commerce services in rural areas. The starting point of the work is that at the moment rural communities in South Africa have very little insight into the available logistics alternatives and capacities that can be used for e.g. transporting farm produce and raw materials, getting supplies at best prices, etc. The idea is to develop a support environment, known as a studio, to facilitate joint development of logistics services. The goal of this paper is to provide requirements for such a studio. To reach this goal we will first provide background information on support environments for developing ICT services in general in section 2. Section 3 describes in general the methodology of the research. In section 4 we describe the logistics services situation in rural areas in South Africa and current ideas to enable this with ICT. In section 5 we will describe how we collected information to get insight in the opportunities and constraints for ICT in rural areas. We do this by describing the existing practice used in developing an ICT toolbox which is currently used to support ICT-enabled service delivery, i.e. the inTouch Africa toolbox. In section 6 we present an analysis of the proposed approach to developing ICT-enabled services for logistics in rural areas, and how some of the identified development issues can be resolved through using a support environment. In section 7 we conclude with a discussion and our plans for future research.

Keywords
Studio; ICT-enabled rural logistics

1.

INTRODUCTION

Owing to the challenging situation of their environment, most communities living in rural areas regularly need to have access to logistics, transportation, education, and many other services whose delivery can be enhanced through the use of ICTenabled technology. In South Africa during the last 10 years a lot has been done to improve the delivery of development oriented services to previously under-serviced communities. The recipients within these communities include ordinary citizens, community based organisations (CBOs) and small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs). In light of this, there is a growing interest in concepts like one-stop-service-shops and multi-purpose community centres (citizens.csir.co.za). Over time, the concept of Multi-Purpose Community Centres (MPCCs) has been developed as potential key delivery mechanisms for community development projects, offering a wide range of services that communities can use for their own development. A lot has been done regarding the deployment of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in these
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2.

BACKGROUND

Rural areas generally have many challenges arising from their environmental, social and institutional conditions, their position and countryside features including natural habitats, scenic landscape and farming practices, limited infrastructure, etc. [12]. In a way the use of ICT is seen as being able to assist in overcoming some of the disadvantages of dispersion. In many cases, new logistics services should be created that are geared to the specific situation in the rural areas, such as bad accessibility, lack of planning, and dependency on external influences such as weather. However, the lack of supportive models to analyze decisions for creating ICT-enabled rural logistics services might be part of the reason for the low rates of technology absorption and

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chaotic situations that exist in attempts at improving rural logistics operations [16]. Most people interested in expanding the ICT infrastructure for effective use in rural areas usually do not have readily available tools and methodologies, and therefore lack the capability to take advantage of the newly developed technologies in ICT to participate in or implement those supply chains that reduce their vulnerability to risk while increasing their direct profit [8]. Given this situation, there is need to create models to help illustrate, simplify and manage logistics operations for rural areas [16]. One of the basic ideas is to use web-enabled technologies and portal technology to make the services accessible and easy to use from remote areas [1]. In order to do this, it may be important that we design re-usable approaches for developing our service architectures, which can be easily modified by using a directly available and relevant approach, embodied in a support environment. According to Sol [14], a support environment should enable decision makers to focus on the relevant design issues and treat context specific issues from various points of view. Following the work of Janssen [5] one may add that a support environment that helps decision makers in organizations to develop ICT-enabled rural logistics services is of vital importance. In his work Janssen cites Kambil and Short [6] as concluding that current theories, frameworks, and planning tools are incomplete and of limited use in helping decisionmakers understand and manage the complexity of these emerging interdependent, networked environments. Given that the main activity of rural areas is agriculture, it is assumed that ICT-enabled logistics services could provide the

means for improving the delivery of inputs, enhancing access to markets as well as enabling the interaction between farmers and agricultural institutions [17]. The United Nations General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) recognizes that ICTenabled services in which service delivery is done across borders are eligible substitutes for other modes of service delivery [15], and we believe that rural logistics fit into this category. The provision of a support environment for the development of this mode of service is the focus of this paper, in which the phrase across borders has been loosely extended to include borders within countries. In todays rapidly growing services provision environment developers involved with providing access to ICT-enabled services are often faced with the immediate requirement to change their structures or add new structures to suit customer needs as soon as their product is ready. While the consumer might think that such a modification or addition is a simple task, the developer might have to add and/or modify several tiers of their existing environment [9]. We therefore believe that there is a need to develop a support environment aimed at helping developers of ICT-enabled rural logistics services to work proactively, rehearse and evaluate scenarios before implementing the services. This support environment, following on the idea of Keen and Sol [7], should provide the capabilities to bring together stakeholders in the services development environment and assist them to visualize future scenarios that they may conceive regarding the service delivery. The framework for such a support environment is given in figure 1.

Architecture
Landscaping, governance, blueprints

Studios
Experiential process methods and recipes for leveraging suites

Suites
Core resources for design and delivery

Figure 1. The framework of the support environment (Source: Keen and Sol [7])

The figure shows how the technology and systems development base suites link to the support processes and methods studios which in turn link to the broader business, organizational and economic context. The studio is an interactive environment centred on the design of skilful, flexible, focused activities at the level of the workplace, the organization, and between organizations. It helps decision makers visualize scenarios and alternatives, providing facilitative services, and applying proven and adaptive recipes in specific contexts.

The studios make use of services that support or improve the decision making process by increasing the decision process agility, referred to by [7] as Decision Enhancement Services (DES). Some of these services of the studio include: Services that shape the environment in which we participate with other actors: landscaping Services for collaboration and participation that need to be facilitated separately Services in the form of examples, scenarios, recipes Services for designing the processes, to achieve real Business Process Agility

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 Services as instruments in the sphere of animation, visualization, (gaming) simulation Services that develop and realize effective cooperation, collaboration, within the studio A studio with such services is a very attractive support environment to design ICT-enabled logistics services for the rural areas. The decision makers and other stakeholders are provided with the opportunity of gauging their initiatives before implementation, and this is expected to greatly improve the outcomes of the various ICT-enablement initiatives 1 .

the most flexibility and control over delivery times and the delivered condition of goods. In most cases the road transport network is not entirely well developed and consists of very few tarmacked or all weather roads, which are barely passable in times of heavy rain [2]. On one hand, small and privately owned vehicles dominate the road transport industry, and high amounts of empty miles and high unit transportation costs are a common characteristic. Given the low level of infrastructure development and low incomes, there is very little use of containerization and intermodal operations. On the other hand, coupled therewith are the high trucking costs and relatively low security of goods in transit [3]. Closely related to production, Naud [10] observes the fact that there is limited direct access to markets that are slightly further than the nearest shopping centre (e.g. urban or international markets). Many rural areas in South Africa could benefit from a model of periodic markets, which would be held in some focal point, mostly close to major road networks and trade centres that act as feeders for the urban areas. Given that a lot of the produce comes from far-flung rural areas, it is desirable to coordinate the service provision and schedules for the periodic transportation of the goods and the farmers to and from the markets. There is also need to provide facilitation for freight collection and distribution services and subsidization in support of the coordinated schedules, centres, and logistics services. Coordination of local transport to coincide with such local periodic markets, mobile clinics, school transport, etc. is also desired [10]. In some cases, you also have brokers and middlemen who supposedly take the burden of going to the far-flung periodic markets from the farmers. They provide transport services as well as collection points at which they buy the produce, but these multi-tiered middlemen make the supply chain too long and therefore unproductive [15].

3.

METHODOLOGY

The research strategy employed was the inductive-hypothetical model cycle [13]. For the purposes of data collection for this research, desktop research was done to initiate the research work, followed by an exploratory inductive case study in which questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and personal observations were central. The work was carried out in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, which is a typical example of a resource-poor rural province with many underserviced communities. The questionnaires were mainly centered on gathering information directly related to logistics in the rural areas, and were distributed to a sample of logistics service operators. Semi-structured interviews were used to supplement the questionnaires especially for cases in which the transporter was either a single-owner business or the firm managers were easily accessible. In addition to this, interviews were carried out with personnel from CSIR involved in logistics and decision support, as well as those involved in the development and delivery of ICT-enabled services. This was done so as to come up with expert opinions that could supplement the questionnaires, and from which generalizations of the viable solutions could be made. The data was collected to come up with a descriptive as-is empirical model mirroring the current situation pertaining to ICT-enabled rural logistics issues, and to provide basis for the development of descriptive conceptual models, which form the next part of the work.

4.2

Telecommunications and the Internet

4.

CONTEXT 2
T

The remote parts of rural areas offer the most significant development opportunities for logistics services given that large sections of the population live there. However, there are many problems related to poor access to the hinterland and the general lack of good infrastructure which make doing business difficult. The rural communities have to travel long distances and over generally rough terrain to get to the markets to sell their goods, which means that they carry less and therefore make less money due to the low volumes and high cost of shipment.

In most rural areas, teledensity remains depressingly low though the mobile services market is growing rapidly. Mobile penetration rates in rural areas are very encouraging; with most people having access to the mobile networks, and this may provide some of the needed stimulus for accessing services [11]. Internet connectivity still remains dramatically skewed in favour of urban areas, though some efforts have been made to provide local access points in some of the focal areas of rural regions. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) notes that given the rising demand for Internet access, wireless technologies (especially the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)) could provide the solution for rural areas. However, very little use is currently made of the available telecommunication infrastructure for the purposes of providing services [4]. Based on the preceding discussions, it becomes clear that some of the logistics problems faced by the rural communities can be solved through the introduction of ICT-enabled services using the technology already existing in the rural areas.

4.1

Logistics Situation

In most rural areas, there is a general lack of proper road, rail, warehousing, and logistics capabilities. The most common method of transport for goods is by road, which also seems to be the most preferred (and cheap) option for moving goods to the market. In general, road transport is thought of as offering
1 The focus of this paper is on studios, and so we do not discuss architectures and suites in detail. 2 This context is based on personal communication with, and from, Andries Naud, Mario Marais and Isabel Meyer.

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4.3

Possible Services

ICT

Enabled

Logistics

Researchers from the Centre for Logistics and Decision Support (CLDS) of the CSIR are currently looking at ways of providing logistics services that are fairly simple through an ICT-enabled local support centre by developing support for entrepreneurs in rural areas based on existing local situations. The following two storylines [Meyer and Marais, personal communication] act as a starting point for the development of an ICT enabled logistics service. Storyline 1: The problem of need for transport I need transport to go and fetch goods from town x. I do not know if anybody else also needs to go to the same place, or who is willing to provide transport. I would typically phone somebody or ask around at the local taxi rank or ask somebody that I know has a pick-up (bakkie). I may also visit a small business support centre to advise me on how to operate my business. The possible solution I send a SMS to the logistics service number. The SMS says where I want to go, and when. At the ICT-enabled centre, a database is maintained of transport service providers, their routes and their prices. When the SMS is received the database is checked and the request for a service is SMSed out to the appropriate set of service providers. They can then respond (either directly back to the centre or to the requestor of the service) with a quote. The centre can add value by screening the responses and only passing on those that are relevant. The centre can also keep a track record of the quality of service of the service providers. I receive the SMSes and make my choice of service provider. I send an SMS or phone to accept. After the service has been provided I will send an SMS to the centre to let them know if the service was good or bad. Storyline 2: The problem of getting supplies at the best price I need to find out where I can buy my supplies at the best prices. I am in Tombo and the suppliers are in Umtata, East London and Durban. It is expensive to phone, and I have no other means of access to information (e.g. internet, catalogues, etc). I also need to place pre-orders for some supplies (e.g. day-old chicks). The possible solution If I have an e-mail address I can request quotes and place orders. I want to be able to inform someone at a central point via sms of my specific need for information, who could then request information on my behalf. The centre can send me (a part of) the content of my e-mail via SMS, or inform me via SMS when I have e-mail so that I can come in and pick up my e-mail at the centre. Based on these two storylines, the idea is to extend the capabilities of a CSIR-developed software toolbox known as inTouch Africa so that these and other possible solutions can be realized; inTouch Africa is described in next section.

various types of MPCCs 4 . To study this system we interviewed the business developers, service developers, and the service implementation and support team. We also went out in the field to observe the usage of the toolbox. In subsection 5.1 we first describe the current functionalities, technology and organization of inTouch Africa, while in subsection 5.2 we describe its current development process.

5.1

inTouch Africa Current Solution

inTouch Africa is a software system that enables the decentralized creation, maintenance, distribution and presentation of information that enhances the supplier/customer interaction in a supply chain - whether it involves physical products or advisory services (www.citizens.csir.co.za). Unlike Web-based systems, inTouch Africa stores information in a database at the point of use. The implied benefit for users is that the cost associated with retrieving information is dramatically reduced. In addition, the use of multimedia is no longer restricted by bandwidth limitations. In an African context, the benefits of such a system speak for itself. Information is created and maintained as close as possible to the source. The system replicates information automatically, updating information at the various access points. Its ability to update changes only, instead of transferring bulky sets of complete data, further contributes to its cost-effectiveness. In short, all the benefits of access to information and the ability to exchange information are exploited without the restrictions imposed by lack of bandwidth and the high cost for remote communities. Within the service provision environment, inTouch Africa (currently in its 10th version) supports a number of services through its critical functions and processes that are very well supported by ICT. These functions range from Case management which allows for information to be captured in a structured and controlled way; Contact management, in which extensive information is captured for clients and service providers; Content management, which captures and displays promotional information of a client; Knowledge management, which assists entrepreneurs to generate realistic business plans; and Voucher management, which tracks vouchers issued to young entrepreneurs and serviced by non-financial service providers. In spite of the availability of all these services, there is currently an urgent need to provide functionalities for transactional services such as e-commerce and logistics within this toolbox, as described in subsection 4.3. However, this is a challenge especially since majority of the users of this toolbox are not commercial users, and as a result of this very little money is paid for it.

5.2

Current Development inTouch Africa

Process

of

5.

CASE STUDY: inTouch Africa 3

A team of people at the CSIR has over the past eight years developed a software toolbox called inTouch Africa that supports the delivery of development oriented services to previously under-serviced communities and deployed it in

The actors involved and the roles they play in developing the services offered by the toolbox at the CSIR can be categorized broadly into: MPCCs are Retail financial assistance institutions like the Allocating Agents of the Umsobomvu Youth Fund, Local level non-financial support centres like Ntsikas Local Business Service Centres, Tender Advice Centres as well as incubation centres (industrial parks or entrepreneurial support centres).
4

Refer also to www.citizens.csir.co.za

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The business developer: the team that gathers the requirements and initial concepts. These are involved in finding new clients, defining needs, and project management. They are generally referred to as the client, since they represent the external clients. The service developer: the team that realizes the service. These are the techies, the team that builds the software systems that are used to support service delivery at community level. At the moment this role is played by one person at CSIR. The service implementation and support: the team that implements the systems and services in user environments. This team ensures that everything starts right, and keeps going right.

funds from the parliamentary budget, there is more freedom, and at times requirements to the service are passed on directly to the service developer. Another problem is that the business developer mostly represents clients who do not know what they want in terms of services or systems to support their services. Given this, the service developer has adapted the rapid application development model for the systems. Most of the external clients have had long-standing relationships with the CSIR personnel, and personal contacts play a very big role in enforcing trust and acceptance of the developed services, and this means that an extra burden is placed on the service developer as the external client feels that anything delivered to them will definitely be useful. So far, this way of working has proved to be a good model for CSIR, hence continued usage of it, but the decision-makers now feel the urgent need to move away from it to a more proactive approach, and the process of including functionalities for the e-commerce and logistics services as described by the storylines in subsection 3.3 is considered as the starting point for new development practices.

At the moment, the development of the services and functionalities offered via the inTouch Africa toolbox is done on an ad hoc and reactive basis, using rapid application development techniques. The service developer uses dirty models of what they perceive as the existing situation or solution to a given need, implement the service, and after deployment to the audience, they then make an assessment of its usefulness and make changes interactively. They hardly have precise empirical models of the prevailing situation and are therefore not in a good position to determine how a given service shall be received by the target audience. At times, the development of services supported by the toolbox is driven by demand whereby the business developer interprets the need of a given service either from experience or interaction with the client, or generally just define services to meet development needs and goals set by the government. At other times, innovation also plays a key role e.g. in a case where they introduced a technology to broadcast sms of relevant information to a group of clients. To date, the deployment model to a large extent is a technology push, and not market pull effort, and the systems are developed and modified interactively and incrementally with the client. The business developer introduces modules into the system, and then waits for reactions from the client. In several cases this has assisted the client in coming up with useful assessments of the percentage of their needs that the rapidly developed application meets, and this works as a starting point for the interactive development. Reactions from the client to the services are handled informally given that there is no helpdesk or problem handling mechanism. The changes that are made to the service provision are not well documented, and there is a high reliance on personalities. There is no formal decision-making process. The business developer, acting on behalf of the client, determines what is required of a service, and passes this information to the services developer, who incorporates changes into the service. Once these changes are incorporated, the client is given a chance to react to them, and if they are acceptable, then they remain or else new changes are made. At times, when the service developer is at an implementation site doing installation or support and notices some extra need in the system, they incorporate it without any formal consultations. Any development requiring access to parliamentary (CSIR) budget must first be justified formally, and the deliverables clearly delineated and a contract signed between the service developer and the client. For development that does not require

6.

ANALYSIS

The decision arena, based on an analysis of the storylines presented in subsection 4.3, is how support can be provided for entrepreneurs in rural communities through building an ICTenabled logistics services centre, and to be able to replicate the service development process to other rural centres. Following on Keen and Sol [7], we can say that the decision mandate in this situation is not problem-framing, but problem-solving. The personnel at CSIR have, through various studies, already determined that there is need for development of such ecommerce and logistics services, and have therefore pre-bound their decision space. Given the afore-mentioned issues and the description of the development and implementation of the inTouch Africa toolbox, we feel that there is need to provide a support environment to enable better service development processes for the e-commerce and logistics services component of the toolbox. The environment, referred to by Keen and Sol [7] as a studio and based on the framework presented earlier in figure 1, would be used to support the requirements definition and negotiation phases of the development process, as well as allow for interaction between the stakeholders. Further more, through the support environment it would be possible to visualize the service delivery before implementation thereby reducing cycle times. Interviews with the development team revealed that they would prefer to be more proactive in their development processes by being able to conceptualize how their services shall be used early enough during the development phase and play around with scenarios of the service deployment before implementation. This is a definite strength of the concept of a studio. The requirements of the studio, arising from a description of the development process and problems identified in subsection 5.2, are discussed as follows: a. How the development process can be made proactive rather than reactive. Through use of the studio, the stakeholders will be able to visualize future scenarios by looking at working models which will assist them to clearly understand what added value will be provided by developing

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the e-commerce and logistics services. For example, when there is need to coordinate periodic transport, service provision and market schedules, the general scenario will be set to represent a typical situation of the given location. Based on some of the characteristics presented in the first storyline in subsection 4.3, different scenarios can be developed to model important aspects such as determination of routes, stopping places, and service times, for the rural communities. This might include issues such as the service access points and times, different combinations of services and customer groups, etc. Using the studio, the decision makers would be able to model, simulate, and toy around with the possible decision scenarios about coordinating transport and logistics needs in the rural areas. b. How to frame the proper decision making mandate for the developers and manage various scenarios of the services provision environment. The studio will bring together all the stakeholders as identified by the scenarios arising from the storylines presented earlier. Through the deployment of suites using tools such as Group Support Systems (interactive, computer-based systems that facilitate solution of unstructured and semi-structured problems by a set of decision-makers working together as a group) the needs of each of the stakeholders can be obtained. The suites will ensure that the needs, roles, and requirements of each of the stakeholders are obtained and handled. c. How to coordinate the (in) dependent activities and needs of the service stakeholders. For example, in the case of the user who requires transport, gathering information for the requirements for provision of such a service can be done in a replicable and anonymous manner, given that cultural issues play a very big role in rural activities and that situations tend to be quite similar over a cross section of regions. The changes that are made to the service provision and the decisions made at each point can be well documented and stored for further use through use of recipes, thereby removing the current high reliance on individuals e.g. the business developer. Due of the fact that dynamic models and visualization of ideas play an important role in the concept of a studio, it supports both the gaining of qualitative insight for all stakeholders into the potential solutions, and quantitative results when comparing alternatives. In the case of farmers who need information on supplies, rehearsing the different scenarios based on the conditions such as long distances and rough terrains would provide very helpful insight before implementing the logistics service, and simulation model results could easily demonstrate the potential benefits to all involved stakeholders.

any of these ideas are to be successful. The costs involved are also an important issue, and this is closely related to the lack of resources in the rural areas. The concepts presented in this paper and the accompanying discussions are part of the findings of the diagnostic stage of inductive case study work in progress, and we shall be building further on this in the next steps of our research.

8.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The work presented here is part of an exploratory study carried out in South Africa, aimed at looking for interventions that can be used to improve the logistics situation in the under-serviced communities through the use of ICT. We are especially indebted to Mr. Hans Ittmann (CSIR Centre for Logistics and Decision Support, Pretoria) for creating an environment within which we could carry out the work and Mr. Andries Naude (CSIR Centre for Logistics and Decision Support, Stellenbosch) for his input and that of his fellow colleagues both in Pretoria and Stellenbosch for their engagement in this work.

9.

REFERENCES

[1] Boyson, S., Harrington, L. H., and Corsi, T. M. In RealTime: Managing the new Supply Chain. Greenwood Publishers, Praeger, USA, 2004. [2] Conyers, D. Guidelines on social analysis for rural area development planning, Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations, 1993. [3] Easton, R.J. On the Edge: The Changing Face of Supply Chain Management in China, Supply Chain Perspectives, Accenture, 2003. [4] ITU African Telecommunications Indicators. Retrieved May 12, 2004, from ITU publications database website: http://www.itu.in/publications/index.html [5] Janssen, M. Designing Electronic Intermediaries. Doctoral Dissertation, Delft University of Technology, 2001. [6] Kambil, A. and Short, J. Electronic integration and business network re-design: A roles-linkage perspective. In Journal of Management Information Systems, vol. 10, no. 4, 1994. [7] Keen, P. and Sol, H. Rehearsing the Future: Building Decision Process Agility, (Forthcoming) 2005. [8] Klein, C. and Jang, W. Supply Chain Issues in Small Agricultural Enterprises. University of Missouri, Agricultural Electronic Bulletin Board, 1996. Retrieved November 5, 2004, from University of Missouri, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering website: http://agebb.missouri.edu/sustain/supplychain.ppt. [9] McGraw, L. 15 Seconds: Advanced Web-Enabled Applications and Services Architecture using XML and XSL Part 1, 2001. Retrieved September 8, 2003, from the 15 Seconds issues website: http://www.15seconds.com/issue [10] Naud, A. and Mashiri, M. Development of local economic linkages in rural areas. International Jubilee Conference on the Economic Empowerment of Southern Africa, 2000. [11] Parkes, S. Land of Opportunity, Horizon House Publications Inc, 2001. Retrieved September 9, 2004,

7.

CONCLUSION RESEARCH

AND

FURTHER

The paper has attempted to show how the development of ICTenabled logistics services for rural areas using a support environment can be more effective than when you develop the services without a support environment. ICT-enabled services are continuously becoming essential in the development and management of rural logistics, since they can provide enhanced market access for rural communities and for organizing supply chains as demonstrated by the storylines presented in subsection 4.3. However, a lot still needs to be done to change the mentality of those requiring, as well as those involved in providing, logistics services in rural areas if

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from http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0TLC/is_11_ 35/ai_80864266/print [12] Savoldelli, A and Innocenti, E. Pilot action on digital economy opportunities for rural areas (PANDORA), 2001. Retrieved August, 22 2004, from the PANDORA website: http://www.ist-pandora.org [13] Sol, H. Simulation in Information Systems Development. Doctoral Dissertation, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, 1982. [14] Sol, H. Shifting boundaries in systems engineering and

policy analysis. Inaugural address, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, 1992. [15] UNCTAD. Note by secretariat, Document TD/B/COM. 1/21, 1998. [16] UNCTAD. E-commerce and Development Report, UNCTAD Electronic Commerce, 2003. [17] United Nations. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2003 Revision. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2004. Retrieved October 22 2004, from the United Nations Economic and Social Affairs website: http://esa.un.org/unup

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