Monday, February 18, 2008

Not only Finnish dilemma

The economy has been growing with an average of 4% during last 10 years. 1% coming from more work and 3% from better productivity. Aging population and shorter hours will start lead to a negative impact from the work element > all growth has to come from better productivity. This is a very familiar challenge in many European countries.

The public sector has a big impact in Finland and generally in EU. Traditionally there has been less focus on productivity. Now it is time to take the same attitude with very high ambitions in both sectors. Same concepts and same tools should naturally be used (or is there anyone who can find a reason for spending tax payer's money for creating separate tools - with different user experience for the public sector - starting from e-id tools).

The fastest and simplest way to improve productivity is by digitalizing administrative processes. And here the 238 billion case is e-invoicing.

9 comments:

Johan said...

eInvoicing is great, but dont forget the potential in eGovernment (love eHospital ideas)
/Johan; DI, Sweden

BoHarald said...

Surely agree that e-government is important - and the same e-invoicing will be used in both private and public sectors. It will form the base for further layers of transaction automation - same data elements in invovices and orders. eHospitals will get a lot from it.Bo

SydäriMaikki said...

Ofcourse you recommend electronic invoicing, because you work for a company which develops tools for it :-)

I think that eInvoice is just a business, which's target is to make more money. It doesn't affect positively to the environment (more electricity consumption) and the systems are rather expensive.

BoHarald said...

who ever you are Sydärimaikki you are sadly mistaken - this is noble cause - enterprises can save 100ds of billions in EU and the environment 15 million trees - where on earth do you get this electricity consumtion idea from - like computers would be used only for e-invoicing...

SydäriMaikki said...

More electronic services and gadgets -> more kwh's. Simple.

It's a noble thought, that moving to eInvoice would save some money or wildlife, but i'm not that fool. Companies that manufacture electronic systems, know how to charge. The hourly rates of hundreds of consults will eat the benefit out. For example SAP.

This is just one sad effort to try to make the most money out of climate change. Every product can be sold as an economic product, but the truth is something else. It's the shareholders pocket that counts, not anything else.

That's what i think.

Mikko

BoHarald said...

Dear Mikko,

Of course we live in a market economy where enterprises are supposed to compete and make money and pay dividends to their shareholders - mostly pension funds and more voluntary saving schemes - you and me and everyone else are the shareholders pockets in other words - (Marx could not have counted on this).

The CO2 footprint for paper invoicing is 2 500 000 tons in EU...

The market economy is not perfect - but the alternative is a direct catastrophy both economically and ecologycally - not to talk about the politacal prisoners and the 10s of millions murdered (Hitler was not even the worst..).

BoHarald said...

Still on the IT footprint - true that it is far too big - not enough incentives in the past. But structured data is really miniscule compared to video for example...

SydäriMaikki said...

I just saw a documentary on e-waste and the problems that it is causing in China.

Pretty scary and way more worse than anything else.

The amount of e-waste is increasing by huge digits and that is - i think - one of the biggest issues nowadays and a tragedy for the ones who disassemble all those gadgets to get a hold of living.

BoHarald said...

Surely a problem - but only by automating more can we truly save the environment and also help developing countries to do same.

http://www.meebo.com/rooms