ICT and e-Business Impact in the Retail Industry - empirica

e-Business in the Retail SectorEU lags behind US – most in e-sales and e-procurementThe “lagmark” analysis revealed that EU retail firms lag behind US retailers in all fourdomains. The US lead is strongest in e-sales, quite strong in e-procurement, and small inICT infrastructure and internal e-operations. As regards ICT infrastructure, EU retailersreach 51% of the possible maximum value, US retailers 55%. In e-procurement, EUretail companies (37%) are twelve percentage points behind the US (49%). In internal e-operations, the lag of EU retail companies (36%) behind EU ones (39%) is small, onlythree percentage points. However, US retailers are much more advanced in e-sales: theyreach 52% of the possible maximum, leaving EU retailers (34%) far behind.Exhibit 3.7-2: “Lagmarks” for differences between EU and US retail companies in ICT and e-business performance (2007)ICT infrastructuree-Procurement0 20 40 60 80 1000 20 40 60 80 100EU51EU37US55US49Indicators:Firms with internet access, average share ofemployees with internet access, broadband internetaccess, LAN, WLAN, intranet, extranet, remoteaccess to company’s computer network.Indicators:Firms procuring online, firms procuring more than50% of purchases online, SCM, e-invoices fromcustomers.Internal e-operations0 20 40 60 80 100e-Sales0 20 40 60 80 100EU36EU34US39US52Indicators:ERP, CRM, software to manage placement orreceipt of orders, warehouse management systems,bar-coding systems, RFID.Indicators:Own website, firms selling online, e-sellers sellingmore than 50% of turnover online, credit cards foronline payment, sending e-invoices, placing onlineads on other companies’ websites, mobilemarketing.Reading example: For the eight indicators of ICT infrastructure, EU retail companies reach on average 51%of the possible maximum (100%), while US retail companies reach 55%.The survey was conducted in 7 EU Member States (DE, FR, IT, ES, PL, SE, UK) and in the USA.Base (100%) = companies using computers; N (Retail, EU-7 and USA) = 1151.Source: e-Business Survey 2007Overall, the e-commerce environment is less vibrant in the EU than in the US. The oneindicator used for highlighting barriers “suppliers and customers not prepared for e-business” which is considerable higher in the EU than in the US, furthermore indicatesthat the e-business ecosystem in the EU is different from the US ecosystem. Europeanretail firms seem to be less electronically bound, yet the question arises whether this isnecessarily a disadvantage for the EU economy. The economic analysis presented inChapter 4 indicates that productivity gains in the US retail sector, for example, are notnecessarily directly related to ICT.76