Ecommerce awards 'deeply flawed'

An unhappy entrant for the 2002 E-Commerce awards has slammed the event for failing to recognise true ebusiness.

Software company extraVision, which specialises in email marketing technology, has accused the UK Online for Business awards of displaying the government's lack of insight into ebusiness.

Managing director John Rowlinson said that they illustrate "a major flaw in the thinking of the UK government and industry when it comes to technology".

Entry for the awards is through an online questionnaire about the applicant's use of the web. But Rowlinson said that "all the questions are about a company's website. That's not all there is to ecommerce."

He maintained that government and industry are blinded by the bells and whistles on a website and fail to look beyond the hype.

"I truly believe that there is so much more to ebusiness than a flashy website, yet clearly the government does not," explained Rowlinson.

But Stuart Hillston, project director of the 2002 E-Commerce awards, defended the selection process. "The awards recognise organisations that have achieved business transformation and some significant gain through their use of the internet," he said.

The awards were divided into four categories covering different sizes of business, and participants were directed towards the correct category based on the size of their organisation.

"We had to make the awards more sophisticated to reflect greater innovation in the business community," said Hillston.

He emphasised that the awards are not aimed at companies providing enabling technologies, although new categories may be added to address this area in the future.