The move towards e-commerce has begun. Earlier this year An Post announced a new service, www.billpay.ie, which will enable users to view and pay their bills online free of charge. At present 1,000 of its offices are online.

Another example is Derry, where news came last month that the e-commerce firm, Gem, is to create up to 700 jobs in the city.

Today, half the people on the Internet are in the US. By 2004 it will only be a third - and two-thirds of all Internet spending will be outside the United States. All the experts say it's just the beginning - a tidal wave of e-commerce activity is on its way. It is still early days. A survey of 300 companies across a range of industries in Britain recently found that less than half were pursuing, or had implemented, an e-commerce plan. The main constraining factors, it was found, "are still the lack of skilled individuals to make e-business happen".

Already many business courses at third-level have e-commerce on offer. One new course at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (DLIADT) introduced a business studies (electronic commerce systems) diploma two years ago. The National Council for Vocational Awards has a new certificate course in e-business. The race is on to provide training to equip the workforce to cope with technological developments. Areas such as cryptography, secure transmission methods, electronic payment, digital mints, legal issues and obligations are all part of e-commerce studies.

The DLIADT's national diploma in business (electronic commerce systems) aims to equip students with the business and technical skills that are needed to design and build effective e-commerce systems. They must understand business subjects such as Internet marketing and economics, corporate strategy, as well as technical subjects such as Internet programming and multimedia.

E-business will affect all sectors of the economy as the emergence of "global value-chains" continues, resulting in jobs that will be "knowledge-intensive and require a highly skilled, creative and flexible workforce", according to Forfas.

The potential of e-commerce is only being realised now, and we can only guess at what the future will hold. Now it is possible to go to a website and select your favourite songs, which, if ordered, will be put on a CD and sent to you by post (in return for your credit card number, of course).

E-Commerce is particularly important in Ireland as it gives businesses a chance to overcome their island location. For national and international businesses, it has the potential to open up business opportunities on a global scale.

Dermot Nolan, head of e-marketing at the Bank of Ireland, says growth in e-business is "phenomenal". In the last year-and-a-half, the staff has increased from 10 to 80. Customers find that e-business saves time, queuing, parking. he says. He has no IT training and "the vast majority of people in the job don't have any. The majority of our staff are business people who are interested in product, brands, marketing, segmentation. We don't need IT training."

Roisin Sweeney, an e-commerce consultant who delivers an e-commerce one-day course for Irish Times Training, says "any institution worth its salt ought to be developing courses in this area. The whole industry is very vibrant. Most companies these days have to move to have their businesses online."

There are positions in marketing, accounting, logistics and human resources, as well as straight IT jobs which will provide an opportunity for people to work in an e-commerce environment, she says.

See course profile on MBS in electronic commerce at Michael Smurfit Graduate School, UCD, on page 10.