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

The European E-Business Report 2005
Marketing and sales
Online sales are not a common practice in the aeronautics industries. Complex and customengineered
modules and subsystems are not easily exchangeable online. However, the adoption rate
of online sales among SMEs in the aeronautics industry is close to the all-sectors average. A large
share of companies selling online to international customers reflects the international dimension of
the value chain in this particular sector.
Transaction volumes of online sales are above or equal to the weighted average for the 10 sectors
studied in 2005. However, with the exception of some micro-enterprises which appear to specialise in
online trading, hardly any company sells more than 25% of its output online.
2.7.3 Important topics and application areas
Electronic business and innovation
According to the 2005 survey results, 45% of aeronautics’ enterprises in the sample introduced
substantially improved products or services to their customers in the previous year. 40% of the
enterprises that carried out product or service innovations reported that at least some of these
innovations had been directly related to or enabled by ICT. 43% of enterprises in the aeronautics
industry said that they conducted process innovations in 2004. About 60% of these firms reported
that at least some of their process innovations were triggered by ICT. These results emphasise the
strategic importance of information technologies: ICT still matter as a potential source of competitive
advantage.
This is illustrated by the case study on Aerostar, a large Romanian company (see Exhibit 2.7-3),
manufacturing light aircraft for civil aviation and operating in aeronautic construction, maintenance and
modernisation of aircrafts. In order to improve the efficiency of information utilisation and meet the
requirements of its customers, Aerostar implemented an ERP system. As a result of process
reengineering and use of an appropriate ICT tool, the company benefited from improvements in quality
level, information flows and use of resources.
The case study on MTU Aero Engines, a German tier one supplier, developing and manufacturing
aircraft engines, shows how a company can use e-business applications to support cooperation with
its suppliers and customers.
Both case studies indicate that, despite the highly complex industry value chain and cyclical nature of
the aeronautics market, companies in the sector can use new technologies to their advantage.
Innovation and performance
e-Business W@tch investigated evidence for the joint occurrence of two financial performance
indicators (turnover development and profitability) with different kinds of innovative activities in the
aeronautics industry. Interestingly, none of the product/service innovation indicators is significantly
correlated with turnover development or profitability. This result diverges from the findings for the joint
transport equipment industries. 82 However, given that the correlations are based on a small sample of
firms, this does not necessarily imply that product innovations in the aeronautics industry do not pay
off.
On the other hand, process innovations are positively associated with increasing turnovers and
negatively with stagnating turnover. In particular, this holds for ICT-enabled process innovations, while
non-ICT-related process innovations do not exhibit significant relationships. This supports the
evidence presented in an earlier sector report on transport equipment manufacturing (August 2004),
82
e-Business Sector Study on the Transport Equipment Sector, August 2004. www.ebusiness-watch.org
('resources').
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