THE DIGITAL ECONOMY & SOCIETY INDEX AND NETWORK READINESS INDEX: PERFORMANCE OF LATVIA ON EUROPEAN UNION ARENA

Technologies are playing very important role in nowadays business and people lives. Some global and European level indices were created to be able to capture digitization and ITC related processes. One of such indicator is The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI, European Union level) that was created in context with digital agenda for Europe in 2020. The other is Network Readiness Index (NRI, global level). Also other indicators exist showing country's performance compared with other countries. In this paper the authors compares these indicators between Latvia and other EU countries. No previous research exist that analysis both indicators for European Union. If we take some of the latest indicators in Latvia and compare with previous years, many have improved. This is good. Unfortunately, it turns out that it is not enough. It is revealed that overall Latvia show low performance in mentioned indicators compared with average level of European Union, as well as the other Baltic States. Accordingly in DESI 2015 Latvia has rank 18 (among 28 EU countries), while Lithuanian rank is 11, but Estonian is 7. If we take The Global Information Technology Report 2015, then Latvian rank is 33 (among 143 countries), while Lithuania is 31th and Estonia is 22. Latvia is the lowest in the EU in Integration of Digital Technology dimension; very low indicators are related to selling on-line and cross-border online sales. Other indicators reveal that internet usage by businesses is very low, for example, companies don't fully use internet marketing. There are at least two main cons for country showing low performance. First, these indicators highlight issues that should be improved and identify where more should be done to improve digitization impact on country's performance. Second, the author analyzes indicators that are usually compared within different countries and widely published Thus providing policymakers and business with insights into current market conditions. For country place marketing it is essential to have better results in such indicators as DESI or NRI. This low performance can result in spoiled prestige, while high performance can improve country's reputation. We all know good examples of country level marketing. For instance, Finland for years is known as country with an excellent education system, because of showing high performance within some indicators that were widely compared with other countries.