"The Danish companies are ahead of the US in B2C e-commerce. With the exception of Germany, Denmark is leading the group of 10 countries included in the survey data forming the basis for this report. The average global sample and countries as Germany is performing substantial better than Denmark on B2B on-line sales. Danish companies have high level of investments in IT, have the lowest barriers for ecommerce and the highest levels of e-commerce drivers. On most indicators for readiness e-commerce such as companies use of e-mail, intranet, EDI, extranet, and provision of mobile services, the Danish business sector has adopted the technologies that can foster e-commerce further on. Yet, our analysis points to alarming and surprisingly findings. The companies have primarily managed to incorporate e-business in the processes controlled by the company themselves (marketing and customer service) but have failed to implement ebusiness in interorganizational system and business integration. Thus, the companies appears to have the inhouse means aligned for e-commerce exploitation, but have yet to transform their external business relations. The financial sector is the best
performing sector with regards to sales, but not leading the pack in on-line services. Also, deficiencies of e-services are found especially within manufacturing companies, where few companies are providing product configuration information and order tracking. The Danish companies have failed to implement services such as gift certificates and product catalogs at their web site. There are not a substantially higher number of Danish companies reporting on successes in terms of more efficient business processes, increased staff efficiency, cost reductions, increased sales areas etc. On several of these dimensions, there are even fewer Danish companies reporting on positive e-commerce impacts. We group the policy implications of our analysis in four classes of actors (government, industry associations/service providers, companies and citizens/ individuals)
suggesting that government will have to increase research, increase the production of engineers, intensify and broaden public e-procurement and e-government, further facilitate e-commerce (de-) regulation to boost on-line use in all business processes, further European harmonization of legislation regarding cross border on-line business processes, accelerate liberalization of labor market to make it easier to expand and contract, and increase public funding schemes for entrepreneurs. Finally, we point to the need for critically accessing the role of industry associations/service providers in awareness campaigns, and stress the need for surveys and identification of weaknesses as well as best business practice and dissemination of this knowledge in spite of the reluctance of SME’s to listen. For the companies, there seems to be a need for giving higher priority to integration with suppliers/customers, focusing on exploiting benefits of e-business investments and higher awareness and engagement in e-marketplaces. For the citizens/ individuals the report discusses the need for continued emphasis on further education and training in IT, languages and business processes and the increased willingness to change." [Information des Anbieters] |