Could you explain that again, preferably in plain English?

`People should trust the equipment more,' says former industry minister John Battle about the reluctance of manufacturers to embrace e-commerce. Speaking at last month's Manufacturing Week trade show in Birmingham, Battle accepted that a generation of management remains wary about using the Internet, partly because of its perception that only computer experts know how to get the best out of it.

Now to some that might seem something of an `ageist' argument - `only 20- and 30-somethings need apply' - but there is evidence (see p12) that a lack of knowledge among potential users is holding back the take-up of web-based business. Over a third of respondents to Benchmark's annual IT survey of UK manufacturing cited this as one of the main barriers to implementing Internet and intranet technologies. Admittedly, there was no mention of age in the responses, but it is a reasonable assumption that decision makers - and holders of companies' purse strings - are, shall we say, `of a certain age'.

Coincidentally, market analyst Fletcher Research, whose latest survey was available at the adjacent CIM show, estimates that a third of the UK population has access to the Internet, either at home or at work. Fletcher's survey focuses on the retail side of e-commerce, which it expects to average an annual growth rate of 69 per cent to 2003.

This is the gloss that is driving the entrepreneurial side of the Internet, as a younger generation leaps on to what seems to be an unstoppable bandwagon. At the undercoat level, however, we have companies like chemical distributor Chance & Hunt (see page 12 again) taking their first tentative steps towards fully-fledged e-commerce. As the first company in its market to have its own web site (in 1996), former ICI-company Chance & Hunt has shown others the way and even acts as an ISP (Internet service provider) to help its key partners establish themselves on the web - thereby breaking down one of the other barriers to Internet investment highlighted by the Benchmark survey, the limited uptake of the technologies by customers.

But in some ways, IT vendors themselves must take some of the blame for this reluctance to use their technologies. Apart from the Internet and e-business, Benchmark also asked about other business software issues such as ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems. These, by IT standards, are a somewhat mature market, with an expected growth in the UK of around 6 per cent next year. So, to make them more attractive, suppliers are adding more functions to their ERP packages. But when asked about APS (advanced planning and scheduling) and CRM (customer relationship management) - two of the latest ERP add-ons - respondents were not that familiar with either (and remember that the Benchmark survey was of `IT decision makers'), until what they do was actually explained.

Could it be that its over-riding emphasis on jargon is at last beginning to catch up with the IT industry? Perhaps a good dose of CRM is called for, with instructions written in plain English that anyone, of any age, can understand.