The Diffusion and Efficient Use of Electronic Commerce in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: An International Three-Industry Survey

The diffusion of e‐commerce applications and solutions in many countries and industry sectors seems to have reached a level of maturity. This applies not only for large firms, but also for SMEs in three analysed industry sectors, i.e. manufacturing, retail/wholesale and banking/insurance, in Denmark, France, Germany, and the US. With the exception of France, a rather large number of SMEs in these countries responded that the implementation of e‐commerce contributed substantially to improve existing operational processes and to expand markets. Although e‐commerce technologies may be available hypothetically in all industries and firms, an efficient usage of e‐commerce is closely related to a comprehensive implementation of more sophisticated solutions, e.g., online procurement or Internet‐based supply chain management. Firms with an all‐embracing approach utilizing many e‐commerce applications are more often efficient than firms with a lower e‐commerce diffusion rate in the sample analysed.