Ecommerce body details plans

A new organisation focused on ecommerce is set to unveil its plans for fuelling the Scottish economy at an event for the business community on Tuesday hosted by Dean Lockhart MSP at Holyrood.

The new Institute of Ecommerce has been set up “by practitioners for practitioners”, aiming to capitalise on the £55 billion annual sales opportunity ecommerce represents to Scotland, delivering support and training to thousands of Scottish businesses over the next five years.

The institute is partnering with the Business School at the University of Strathclyde to deliver what it says is the first ecommerce course of its kind in the UK, targeted at senior ecommerce managers.

It is designed to close the skills gap – “the primary handbrake on the growth of ecommerce in Scotland”. The first session of the pilot course, which was heavily oversubscribed, took place last month. It is supported by Scottish Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland and runs until the end of June, with keynote speakers to include senior figures from Google and Amazon.

Further specialist and beginners courses are in development, with a programme of ecommerce grassroots clubs already running in Glasgow and Stirling and due to be extended to Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Peter Mowforth, co-founder of the institute, said; “Ecommerce now accounts for £688bn of the UK’S trade, with government statistics recording it growing at a staggering 18 per cent. Like never before, we need to equip businesses here in Scotland with the skills, techniques and tools to ensure that we don’t get left behind in what is fast becoming the primary mechanism for driving productivity, wealth and exports.”

He added that the new institute represents a public-private partnership aiming to help get Scotland “firmly aboard the ecommerce train”.