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

The European E-Business Report 2005
Exhibit 2.8-2: Main findings of the e-Business Survey 2005 for the construction industry
Application area
Basic ICT infrastructure
and skills development
Integration of
Internal processes
Supplier-facing
activities
Customer-facing
activities
Main findings
• Basic internet access has been established.
• More advanced forms for access such as W-LAN and VPN still offer unused
potential.
• Few construction enterprises allow remote access to their ICT system and
those that do, use a fixed line connection.
• Despite the fact that the sector is characterised by remote and mobile work
processes, usage of remote access and remote access via mobile networks is
significantly low.
• Recruitment of ICT staff is, in general, low.
• Little focus on ICT skills development – regular training is not taking place.
• The most common form for digital connection is DSL; the analogue modem
seems to be on its way out.
• Broadband is not widely diffused in the sector.
• Less than a third of construction firms have an intranet.
• Knowledge management and e-learning applications are not widely diffused.
• The uptake of ERP systems and applications to manage capacity/inventories
online is low.
• Low uptake of EDM systems and applications to track working hours online.
• Sharing documents online is not an application that is commonly used.
• Collaborative work processes such as collaborative design processes and
collaborative forecasting of demand are not widely diffused in the sector.
• Almost a third of construction firms (representing less than half of employment in
the sector) have purchased supplies online.
• Very few construction firms buy more than 25% of supplies online.
• Online procurement is primarily taking place within national borders.
• The use of specific ICT systems for e-procurement is not widely diffused.
• Whenever used, e-procurement systems seem to be used primarily for the initial
phases of procurement, i.e. for finding suppliers, running RfQs / RfPs, and
ordering supply goods.
• The primary type of special ICT solutions for e-procurement is a standard
software package.
• Only about a third of small enterprises have a website.
• Online sales do not seem to be widespread in the sector
• Very few construction firms use specific ICT solutions for online
marketing/sales.
• Online customers seem to be either regional or national.
• The construction enterprises that use ICT systems for e-marketing/e-sales use
these systems primarily for publishing offers to customers, answering RfQs/RfPs
and facilitating online ordering - and they do so quite intensively.
• Cultural and practical barriers might still hamper cross-border cooperation and
online payments.
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