The European e-Business Report The European e ... - empirica

The European E-Business Report 2005
Exhibit 2.5-2: Main findings of the e-Business Survey 2005 for the M&E industry
Application area
Basic ICT infrastructure
and skills development
Integration of
Internal processes
Supplier-facing
activities
Customer-facing
activities
Main findings
• Almost all firms in the M&E sector are endowed with internet access.
• Firm-internal network infrastructures, such as LAN and WLAN, are also widely
used, in particular among large companies.
• The diffusion of more sophisticated infrastructure and access technologies
(WLAN, broadband and VPN) is slightly less advanced in the M&E sector
compared to the all-sectors average.
• 20% of firms in the industry allow remote access to their computer network, and
an additional 5% plan to enable remote access in the near future.
• Only 11% of firms in the M&E industry offer regular ICT training to employees.
• The average level of gross capital investment in ICT hardware and software in
the M&E sector in 2004 was € 70,000; the median was € 5,000. Average
investments are thus comparable to those made by firms from other sectors in
the sample.
• The importance of ERP systems and ICT-tools to optimise product-related,
internal processes is emphasised in case studies and supported by the survey
results.
• Adoption level of ERP in particular systems is high in M&E compared to other
sectors, but there are still pronounced differences by size-band.
• Special ICT solutions to manage capacities and inventories online are used by
13% of enterprises in this sector, compared to 9% on average.
• The sector currently shows an average endowment with ICT for sharing
information and knowledge among employees, compared to the other 9
sectors surveyed.
• Purchasing online is confirmed as one of the most popular applications of ICT
and the internet in the M&E sector. More than one third of all firms in the sector
currently purchase online.
• Large firms are again more prone to e-procurement than small companies, but
small firms that actually do purchase online reported procuring higher shares of
their total purchasing volume via online channels.
• Total online purchasing volumes are still rather small, however, if measured as
% of total supplies purchased.
• Among those companies that reported using special ICT solutions for e-
procurement purposes (10% of all firms in the sector), 62% use standard
software packages and 51% use customised, company-specific solutions.
• 14% of all firms say that they use a Supply Chain Management system. This
figure is very close to the average of 15% among the 10 sectors studied.
• The M&E industry continues to show low usage rates for online sales and e-
marketplaces. 5% of firms in the sector sell online, compared to 15% on
average across all sectors.
• The majority of firms that sell online rely on simple sale-side e-commerce
activities, rather than complex, sophisticated systems. This is not surprising
since M&E products are often highly customized and do not easily lend
themselves to be sold via the internet.
• Yet, business examples and case studies show that there is potential in this
industry to use customer-facing e-business solutions to improve productivity
and customer service. Presumably, these business opportunities have not yet
been completely realised by a large share of firms in the sector.
• 7% of firms (representing 28% of employees) use CRM systems. About one
quarter of these firms said that CRM proves to be ‘very helpful’ in increasing the
effectiveness of marketing, while almost 60% considered it ‘rather helpful’.
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