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

The European e-Business Report 2006/07e-Business W@tch also asked companies whether their ICT system had links to that ofcustomers. About 10% of SMEs and 25% of large firms in the ten sectors said that theyhad established such links. This is not necessarily directly related to collaborative CRM,however. It is also possible, that these links are part of an integrated e-commercescheme between companies, e.g. via dedicated EDI connections.1.7 ICT and InnovationThe capability for innovation is very important for European companies, particularly inindustries which compete increasingly on global markets. Innovation drives productivitygrowth and enables companies to keep their position in higher market segments, whichrely on differentiation and quality. ICT can play a major role in enabling both product andprocess innovation.e-Business W@tch asked companies whether they had launched any new orsubstantially improved products or services during the 12 months prior to the interview,and if they had introduced new or significantly improved internal processes in the sameperiod of time. Companies indicating that they had introduced innovations were thenasked follow-up questions on the role of ICT for their innovation activity.Firms representing more than 30% of employment in the ten sectors studied in 2006 saidthat they had launched new (or improved) products in 2005/06. About half of theseproduct innovations had been directly related to or enabled by ICT (see Exhibit 1.7-1).As can be expected, ICT is most important for product innovation in the ICT-relatedsectors themselves.The use of ICT for process innovation is often centred on production processes, suchas automated and computer-based manufacturing systems, or processes aimed atmanufacturing products that can combine costs of mass production with differentiation ofcustomised, optimisation of the value chain. In total, companies representing 32% ofemployment said that they had introduced new processes in the 12 months prior to theinterview. 75% of these innovations were considered to be ICT-enabled.Among most of the manufacturing industries studied, the share of companies thatintroduced new processes is higher (40-50%), with ICT playing a critical role, typicallyenabling about 60-80% of these innovations. The shipbuilding and footwear industries arethe exceptions among the sectors studied; apparently, fewer companies use ICT forprocess innovation, in particular among the larger firms. However, these two industriesdiffer from the others in terms of their production and distribution characteristics. Inshipbuilding, for example, innovation cycles are usually longer than one year, which wasthe predefined time frame of the survey question. In footwear, traditional workorganisation still prevails; the degree of ICT adoption is generally lower than in most othermanufacturing sectors.66