Asian business leaders see the Internet primarily as a forum for the sale of products and services and as a communications tool rather than as a means to transform their company's revenue streams, according to a survey.
In fact, most chief executives do not even see the Net as a particularly useful communications tool.
Two-thirds of the 334 respondents to the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) survey said the Internet had had little impact on their shareholder communications strategy, with one in four saying it had had no impact at all; 62 per cent said e-business had had only some or no effect at all on brand strategy.
The survey, conducted on the eve of the World Economic Forum's East Asia Economic Summit in Singapore, found that CEOs failed to grasp concepts such as computer-assisted tools and processes to transform a company's value.
They also did not utilise sophisticated data warehousing and business-linking networks.
They used the Net mainly for news updates, reflecting a perception that the primary emphasis on the Net was as a communications tool.
This was despite the phenomenal increase of Internet users.