Footwear Industry Footwear Industry - empirica

Footwear
3 Adoption of ICT and e-Business in 2006
Background information about the e-Business Survey 2006
e-Business W@tch collects data on the use of ICT and e-business in European
enterprises by means of representative telephone surveys. The e-Business Survey 2006
was the fourth survey after those of 2002, 2003 and 2005. It had a scope of 14,081
interviews with decision-makers in enterprises from 29 European countries. 23
Most of the tables in this report feature a breakdown of the population of enterprises
based on the aggregate of 10 EU countries – the "EU-10". 24 In these countries the
survey covered all 10 sectors (at least to some extent) and therefore comparability of the
sample across sectors is given. The EU-10 represent more than 80% of the total GDP
and inhabitants of the EU-25 and are thus to a large extent representative for the whole
EU.
The survey was carried out as an enterprise survey, i.e. focusing on the enterprise as a
business organisation (legal unit) with one or more establishments. Similarly to 2005, the
2006 survey also included only companies that use computers. The configuration of
the survey set-up (e.g. sampling) reflects the mandate of e-Business W@tch to focus on
sectors and SMEs. As a result, comparisons should mainly be made between sectors
and between size-bands of enterprises. Breakdowns by country are also possible, but
should be treated cautiously, for several reasons (see Annex I).
In the footwear industry, 978 interviews were conducted; out of these, 769 with
companies from the EU-10.
More detailed information about the survey methodology, including information about
sampling and the business directories used, the number of interviews conducted in each
country and sector, data on non-response rates, as well as selected results by country
are available in Annexes I and II and on the e-Business W@tch website.
23
24
The survey was conducted in March-April 2006 using computer-assisted telephone interview
(CATI) technology. Field-work was co-ordinated by the German branch of Ipsos GmbH
(www.ipsos.de) and conducted in co-operation with their local branches and partner
organisations. The countries covered include EU Member States, Acceding and Candidate
Countries, and countries of the European Economic Area (EEA).
The EU-10 cover the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary, the
Netherlands, Poland, Finland and the UK.
27