At an indoor stadium in the heart of the island nation of Singapore, several thousand people gather around 300 personal computers linked with high-speed connections to the Internet. Over the course of several hours, they will get a crash course in how to use PCs and, more important, how to navigate the World Wide Web.

The ritual will be repeated three times per day, at least once per month, until the government is convinced the majority of the nation's 3 million people have been brought up to speed on the information superhighway.

Until now, the Asian Tiger economies have lagged somewhat in adopting Internet technologies, particularly in business-to-business communications.

Sense Of Insecurity

Analysts say the reasons are partly cultural, partly institutional and partly due to deeply rooted business trading practices. But in places like Singapore, it's clear governments, businesses and the people themselves are mobilizing to claim their place in the revolution.

"We have always prided ourselves on being the hub for commerce in the region," says Michael Yap, deputy chief executive of the Singapore National Computer Board. "But as the Internet economy grew, we began to feel that electronic commerce services were developing elsewhere."

That sense of insecurity -- that the way of conducting business in the past must be abandoned to join the Internet race -- is being felt throughout the region. In a recent survey of 300 chief executive officers from major companies in nine Asian countries, Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP (www.pwcglobal.com) found that nearly 73 percent believe e-business will either "completely reshape" or have a "significant impact" on competition in their industries.

That contrasted with their current state of preparedness. Roughly 40 percent of those CEOs say they derive no revenue at all from e-business, and another 35 percent are in the 1 percent to 5 percent range.

"To meet these projections, e-business will have to grow incredibly quickly in Asia," Pricewaterhouse Coopers CEO Jim Schiro said in presenting the findings at a summit in Singapore last month. "They realize what's at stake from a global competitiveness standpoint."

Nowhere is the contrast more apparent than in Japan, the linchpin of the Asian economy. Tim Clark, president of Tkai Inc. (www.tkai.com), a Portland, Ore.-based firm that does e-commerce consulting in Japan, says Japanese businesses are at least two years behind their U.S. counterparts on the business-to-business commerce front.

"There is still strong resistance to changing long-established business customs," says Clark, publisher of the Japan Internet Report. "Companies are reluctant to bypass the numerous players in multitiered distribution systems. There's much less freewheeling, Internet-style dialogue between individuals in different companies. Organization-to-organization, rather than individual-to-individual, communications are the rule."

While Japanese telecommunications infrastructures are state-of-the-art, a metered pricing scheme enforced by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (www.ntt.co.jp), which is majority-owned by the Japanese government, has acted as a barrier to widespread adoption. Japanese businesses and consumers pay the equivalent of $1.67 per hour for local telephone calls to their Internet service providers during weekday daytime hours. "How do you think that would change Internet usage in the U.S.?" Clark asks.

Mike Beirne, an American who developed Japanese conglomerate Fujitsu Ltd.'s (www.fujitsu.co.jp) first Web site in 1995, agrees with Clark for the most part. However, he says, Japan Inc. has all the tools in place to become an Internet superpower.

"Is there a Cisco [Systems Inc.] in Japan today? No, but these huge companies, that literally have the installed base of most businesses in Japan, have done all the groundwork to offer solutions over the Internet or extranets," he says.

One possibility is Hitachi Corp., a $64 billion conglomerate that is best known for making hard goods such as VCRs, mainframes and networking equipment. Hitachi (www.hitachi.co.jp) has been conducting Internet commerce with its more than 21,000 business partners since early 1997 and purchases most of its supplies and services over the Web.

Last month, it became one of the first Asian companies to compete aggressively in the North American marketplace for a share of the booming electronic procurement market by introducing a suite of software products under the TradeLink banner. The "plug-and-play" suite allows companies to port legacy applications, database and enterprise resource planning applications, such as those from SAP AG and Oracle Corp., onto the Web.

Ira Machefsky, an analyst at Giga Information Group Inc. (www.gigaweb.com), says Hitachi is late entering the game, but with huge financial resources at its disposal, it could easily become a leading player.

Hitachi already has forged partnerships with two big systems integrators, Deloitte and Touche LLP and TRW Inc. Mark Collett, named to head the U.S. arm, which will market TradeLink, says Hitachi was able to succeed in Japan where other conglomerates have yet to make headway because it led by example.

While most Asian companies are not as advanced as Hitachi in adopting electronic commerce, they believe that picture will change quickly.

In its survey, Pricewaterhouse found one-fifth of Asian CEOs see more than 20 percent of their total revenue coming from e-business in five years. Another one-fifth estimate e-business revenue in the 11 percent to 20 percent range, while another one-fifth forecast revenue in the 6 percent to 10 percent bracket.

Not Willing To Wait

"I don't think Asian companies can be compared with their counterparts in the U.S. at the moment," says Gye Hyun Park, director of information technology operations at South Korean electronics and consumer goods giant LG Electronics Inc. (www.lge.co.kr). "However, they are aware of its importance and are trying to gear up for competition."

The Singapore government is not willing to wait for companies to gear up on their own. It has launched an e-commerce master plan, which has all the markings of a military-style campaign.

The government has declared that by 2001 all key public services will be delivered over the Internet.

To jump-start Singapore as an e-commerce hub, a variety of incentive schemes and support programs have been put forward, which have lured the likes of Compaq Computer Corp. (www.compaq.com) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (www.hp.com) to base their Asian electronic commerce operations there.

As well, the government is lending its support to build a variety of industry-related electronic commerce networks. Seven have been launched to date.

Fact File

Internet Commerce

Rapid Growth Throughout Asia And Pacific Region

I-Commerce Revenue (In Millions)

* Projected

Source: International Data Corp.