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208 Part 1 Introduction

e-Banking

Employees using the internet

Access to the internet

Broadband connection

Buying on the internet

Website

e-Gov: returning filled form

Selling on the internet
e-Business: automatic linking of
internal processes
e-Business: automatic linking
with business partners
e-Commerce – online turnover 2006
2004
LAN and Intranet or Extranet

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
% of enterprises

Variation in use of e-commerce services between SMEs and larger
Figure 4.6 enterprises
Source: European Commission (2007

The luxury of sufficient resources to focus on the planning and implementing an Internet
strategy isn’t open to many small businesses and is likely to explain why they have not been
such enthusiastic adopters of e-business.
A useful guide to risks and rewards of e-business for SMEs has been produced by Com-
puter Weekly (2004). The author suggests that the level of risk and reward can be assessed
through a combination of four factors.
1 Revenue. This suggests comparison of the importance of online channels for direct or indi-
rect revenue. If revenue becomes significant, then steps must be put in place to avoid
outages leading to loss.
2 Reputation. Again, if a significant proportion of trade is online, there is a reputational
damage if the web site becomes defaced or unavailable.
3 Strategic importance. How important is the web site (and electronic transactions) to you?
Would there be a significant impact if it were to become unavailable?
4 Regulatory compliance. If a company is processing or storing data which are subject to legisla-
tive control (e.g. customer or employee data) then the penalties or reputational damage from
not providing adequate safeguards may be high if the data are compromised.