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ICT Employment
The small number of people with access to
education is not enough to cover the need for technical
employment opportunities. Although there are some local
universities that offer ICT education the number of
people that have access to it is very limited.
Qualified ICT employees are sometimes
hard to find and hire. Due to the demand of
professional ICTEmployees some of them prefer to leave
the country looking for better salaries and the
opportunity of learning new technologies or to stay as
local independent consultants. Guatemalan ICT
workforces that moves to independent or organized
consulting are starting to charge in dollars instead of
local currency as salaries in Guatemala are very low.
There are some consulting firms that provide analysis
design, development and implementation services; the
following are some examples:
Due to the increasing number of business with need of
ICT Employees we can qualify Guatemala to be in Stage 3
of ICT Employment
B2C E-Commerce
There
is no doubt that Guatemalan business want to move into
the online
retail market. When opening some of the main newspapers
websites you are bombarded with pop outs and flashing
advertisement. Even though it is too early for the
small and medium companies to move into electronic
commerce big corporations are moving quickly as in the
case of the following major retail companies in
Guatemala.
Large corporations already have websites and provide
information about goods and services on line. However,
most purchases are done in person as only few websites
have online retail services. Therefore, we believed that
Guatemala is in Stage 3 for B2C Electronic Commerce
B2B E-Commerce
The majority of Guatemala’s businesses
still require paper-based transactions. Electronic
based B2B transactions are a small percentage of overall
B2B commerce. However, the deployment of electronic
systems has increased in the last 7 years. Although, a
lot of large and medium business have their own
proprietary systems and databases, electronic
transaction between businesses is hardly seeing; a
normal transaction between retails will require a paper
P.O. a paper invoice and a paper check.
On the other hand, between banks all
transactions are completed electronically as in the
case of the following local banks and credit cards:
Some
of these banks have already started offering electronic
banking which lets customer check balances and submit
request via e-mail. Transactions between join accounts
are also available in some cases.
In the
case of banks and credit card companies all B2B
transactions are done electronically. Even though, most
large and medium companies have their own system and
databases, the majority of them still rely on B2B paper
based transactions. We believe Guatemala’s B2B
Electronic Commerce is currently in Stage 3 as well.
E-Government
It was very easy to find government
information as they have their own centralized website,
www.Guatemala.gov.gt/ with links to some government
agencies. Some of the links listed in the main
government website were very informative, attractive and
fast to access as in the case of the Superintendent of
Telecommunications,
http://www.sit.gob.gt/ , where forms can
be download and send via fax or e-mail. Another helpful
link was the Superintendent of Banks,
http://www.sib.gob.gt/ , where a complete
list of all local banks is found as well as legal
information and main events.
The following is a small list of
government websistes taken the government portal:
Some
other important sites were under construction as in the
case of the Minister of National Defense and National
Typography.
Guatemala counts with a government portal with links to
its main agencies. A lot of these sites had very good
information and few were under construction. A lot of
this websites were very informative and some provided
access to forms and some enable electronic submission
what suggest that Guatemalan’s E-Government is in Stage
3.
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