My heart sinks when I hear British business or political leaders talking about how we can still aspire to be a niche player in global technology. Why just niche? Why not a leading player in the global connected economy?

There is another way. In the UK, we have tremendous assets in IT, telecommunications and business consulting. We have great intellectual capital in our universities, which are still among the world leaders in theoretical mathematics, computer science, physics and economics.

Our IT companies – whether UK-based, such as LogicaCMG or Xansa, or multinationals with large UK operations, such as IBM, EDS or Capgemini – win contracts around the world to provide software, IT systems and services.

British firms, such as Royal Bank of Scotland, BP and British Airways, have IT departments that lead the world in solving business problems through the smart use of technology. The West invented the internet, broadband, IP networks, Google, eBay and the iPod.

We should be delighted that new technologies enable the global economy to encompass India, Singapore, China and South Africa, providing their citizens with the opportunity to share in the prosperity engendered by world trade.

I believe that globalisation is both a great opportunity for British prosperity and a major threat to British complacency. Decisions we take in the next year or so will determine which it is.

Globalisation is driven by the virtually free global telecommunications networks and internet traffic we now enjoy. We can now access information on everything almost instantaneously, and for free through Google and other search engines.

We can make free telephone calls to Australia over the internet and engage in ecommerce with individuals in other countries online on eBay. Books and DVDs can be bought, and taxes paid, online.

In the same way as its competitors, British Airways, the company I work for, now sells the vast majority of its short-haul tickets online, and 87 per cent of our customers now use e-tickets. Four out of every five passengers at the new Heathrow Terminal 5 will check in online or at the self-service kiosks at the airport.

The dot com financial bubble may have burst, but IP now enables global networks and is creating a global, economic and social revolution. It is happening all around us right now, but in the UK we need to participate in the new global game – not watch from the touchline with concern.

In the past five years, while political, media and public attention has rightly and understandably focused on the impact of war and terrorism, the world has been changing in a profound way.

The West’s insurance transactions, new releases of software, call centres and consumer product developments are undertaken globally – in India, Eastern Europe, China or South Africa – wherever there are the skills and a competitive cost-base.

The British IT and consultancy industries have a choice. They can go the way of the British motorcycle or shipbuilding industries in the mid 20th century. Or we can respond and meet the challenge.

The challenge, and indeed the threat, is that our lead in these areas is disappearing fast as our competitors develop their universities, skills base and competitive edge. India now says it has 1.3 million people employed directly in its IT sector with three million more in related jobs.

Indian universities now produce 180,000 IT graduates a year, and the Indian big three – Wipro, TCS and Infosys – are fast becoming global enterprises in their own right, with their own subsidiaries in the US, UK, Eastern Europe and China.

I believe that the UK needs to take a three-pronged course of action as a matter of national economic priority. First, we need to embrace globalisation enthusiastically and unambiguously. Second, we need to radically develop the skills capability and training of our IT and business professionals. Third, we need to equip our whole workforce to use the technology that is already present in our working and leisure lives, and will in the next few years become totally pervasive.

The good news is that there is pretty much a consensus around these policies, across business, trade unions and politicians. As a nation with free trade roots, Britain has been open to globalisation.

The bad news is that our development of business and IT skills, and of IT capability in the workforce as a whole, is too slow and too tentative. There is much work, then, to be done. CB

Paul Coby is chief information officer (CIO) of British Airways, chairman of the SITA Group and chairman of the eSkills UK CIO board.