Which are the abilities of and Ecommerce leader (q)

Two groups, known as leaders and followers, were identified from the survey results. They include organizations that have achieved profit or productivity gains from e-commerce implementation and those that have not. The leaders and followers displayed distinct sets of characteristics in terms of ecommerce adoption, implementation, and integration. With regard to ecommerce, ‘leaders’ are those for whom ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ achievement of profitability and improvement benefits has occurred through ecommerce (or, in the case of non-profit organizations, ‘excellent’ achievement of productivity and improvement benefits).

The following characteristics of leaders help to describe actions that ‘followers’ might want to take in order to catch up and compete effectively with e-commerce. The leaders’ characteristics include:

• Being smaller and more focused on business benefits in e-commerce;

• Being more likely to be in the financial services and computer technology industries;

• Having an aggressive cost focus; • Giving e-commerce higher importance in their business strategies;

• Having higher and more specific expectations from technology;

• Being less likely to see barriers and better able to minimize those that may exist;

• Demonstrating higher levels of integration of e-commerce across the board;

• Being more likely to have implemented EFT, EDI, Intranet, and Extranet already, and;

• Being far more likely to be conducting marketing, public relations, and advertising via the Internet.