E-business in New Zealand, 2000-2002 by Delwyn Clark, Stephen ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

feasibility issues linked to financial returns, marketsize and resources (specifically time and costs). Therole of partners, customers and suppliers ine-business implementation was recognised and thelack of readiness of these groups to do businesselectronically was perceived by the non-websitecompanies as a major source of difficulties. Thesefindings also indicate that the inhibitors ofe-business in New Zealand extend beyond thetechnological resources required, to incorporatea wide range of internal organisational andexternal contextual factors.STATUS OF E-BUSINESSIN NEW ZEALANDhree major patterns were identified in thisT research on e-business in New Zealandcompanies: (1) size matters, (2) industry matters,and (3) what matters differs for the ICT players andICT observers. The adoption of ICTs was affectedby organisational size (measured using FTEemployees). This finding reflects both the scale ofresources available for investment in newtechnologies (larger companies have greater accessto resources) and the requirements of businessprocesses (much greater scale and capabilities areneeded to co-ordinate communication and businessprocesses in a large diversified company than in asmall or micro business).The uptake of ICTs for business activities variesby industry. The nature of the product/service andthe core activities in the industry value chain affectthe types of activities that can be conducted onlineor supported with web technologies. Most industriesare not offering digital products or selling physicalproducts on the internet. However, ICTs can be usedfor many other types of business activities such asprocurement of supplies, operations, marketing,distribution, communication, or companyadministration. The key is to identify the areas whereimprovements in efficiency and effectiveness ofbusiness processes can be made with ICT support.Significant differences were found in perspectivesand priorities for the companies that had adoptedICTs (e.g. websites) and those that were stillwatching/observing the emerging technologies fromthe sidelines (non-adopters). This finding was linkedto assessment of the inhibitors/difficulties fore-business implementation and the measures toimprove uptake. The uptake and effectiveness ofe-business activities is influenced by many contextualfactors beyond an organisation’s boundaries andcontrol. For the website companies, the two topinhibitors in 2001 and 2002 were “low customerTABLE 3Inhibiting factors: mean importance values*Website companies2001 2002 2001 2002Low customer use of e-commerce 3.25 1 3.15 1 3.14 5 3.03High costs of computing and network technology 3.00 2 3.10 2 2.93 3.21 2(implementation)Limited knowledge of technologies 2.98 3 2.89 5 2.89 2.95Uncertainty of financial benefits 2.89 4 2.87 3.49 1 3.19 3Concerns about security aspects 2.88 5 3.01 3 3.05 3.08Lack of time to start new projects 2.87 3.00 4 3.25 3 3.14 4Lack of experienced IT staff 2.85 2.86 3.07 3.05Limited knowledge of e-business models 2.81 2.59 3.10 2.94Business partners not ready 2.79 2.69 3.19 4 2.92Limited size of target market 2.77 2.77 3.41 2 3.24 1Low supplier use of e-commerce 2.73 2.67 3.11 3.06Concerns about quality of telecommunications 2.70 2.77infrastructureCannot see benefits yet 3.07 3.12 5Note: *Clark et al. (2002). Importance ratings for factors were made ona scale of 1-5, where 1 is very low, 3 is moderate and 5 is very high.Non-website companiesUNIVERSITY OF AUCKLANDBusiness ReviewVolume 5 Number 2 20038
Lack of readiness for e-business by other key players,including partners, customers and suppliers, wasperceived as a major difficulty by non-website businessesuse of e-commerce” and the “high costs ofcomputing and network technology”. Companieswithout websites were more concerned withfeasibility issues linked to financial returns, marketsize and resources (specifically time and costs). Thelack of readiness for e-business by other key players,including partners, customers and suppliers, wasperceived as a major difficulty by the non-websitebusinesses. The most important measures to improveuptake and effectiveness of e-business in NewZealand were improving “telecommunicationsinfrastructure”, “consumer access to the internet”and “improved security”, according to thecompanies with websites in 2002. Top priorities forthe non-website companies were “improvedsecurity”, “telecommunications infrastructure” andthe provision of “training for e-business”.READINESS FOR THEDIGITAL ECONOMYeyond identification of current e-businessBpractices, another approach to assessing“readiness” is to evaluate the areas that are identifiedas most critical for successful participation in thedigital economy. For these types of measurements,specific “scorecards” focus on readiness at variouslevels of analysis, e.g. national economies orindividual businesses. The Asia Pacific EconomicCo-operation (APEC) E-Commerce ReadinessAssessment Guide (APEC, 2000) was designed forcompletion at government level. This assessmentwas developed for use in partnership mode bygovernments and stakeholders to identify the areaswhere further development is needed: to developpolicies to promote e-commerce or to removebarriers to electronic trade. The assessmentincludes factors such as the levels of technologicalinfrastructure, internet access, internet usage, ITeducation, and the regulatory framework fore-commerce.Another national economy level readinessmeasure has been developed by the EconomistIntelligence Unit (EIU). EIU has a proprietarymethodology that it uses to rank 60 countries intofour levels of e-business preparedness – e-businessleaders, e-business contenders, e-business followersand e-business laggards (EIU, 2001). TheseE-Readiness rankings are published on theebusinessforum.com website and are used forevaluating geographic markets and for internationalbenchmarking purposes. EIU employs analysts tocombine quantitative data and qualitativeassessments by country specialists into six weightedcategories for their E-Readiness measure:connectivity (30 per cent), business environment (20per cent), e-commerce consumer and businessadoption (20 per cent), legal and regulatoryenvironment (15 per cent), supporting e-services (10per cent) and social and cultural infrastructure (fiveper cent). Assuming successful e-business is notpossible without a positive business climate overall,EIU screen 70 indicators for the businessenvironment scores that provide projections for thenext five years.To provide a company-level measure of readiness,Hartman, Sifonis and Kadir (2000) developed ascorecard using a series of factors identified froman in-depth analysis of Cisco Systems and a seriesof other “net” companies as critical for success ofan enterprise in the internet-based economy.Accordingly, this Net Readiness Scorecard evaluatesattributes of four main drivers of change:Leadership, Governance, Competencies andTechnology. There are two versions of thisscorecard: a short version, in which 20 factors areassessed to provide an approximate measure of NetReadiness; and a longer and more detailed versionthat can be completed electronically at thewww.netreadiness.com website. The extendedmeasure is designed to profile the company’s currentstate of Net Readiness, to assess its position relativeto others in the same industry (US-based) and toprovide prescriptive recommendations to improveits competitive positioning.NET READINESS IN NEWZEALAND INDUSTRIEShe short version of the Net Readiness ScorecardTwas adapted for research on New Zealandcompanies in a series of different industries (Clark,9
Page 2 and 3: E-businessin New Zealand2000-2002:a
Page 4 and 5: Zealand, the overall New Zealand av
Page 6 and 7: capabilities for business processes
Page 10 and 11: 2001; 2002). An empiricalsurvey was
Page 12 and 13: to identify and develop appropriate

E-business in New Zealand, 2000-2002 by Delwyn Clark, Stephen ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?