Electronic commerce crucial for business, Accenture report says
Despite Polands low Internet penetration rate and nascent e-commerce, almost half the executives surveyed in a new report said e-commerce makes up a significant portion of their business.
The report, issued last week by Accenture, an international management technology consulting firm, noted that 47% of the 30 Polish corporate heads surveyed said e-commerce constituted an important part of their operations. But only 27% said they thought it would transform the way they do business. The annual findings also noted that 43% of respondents said e-commerce was part of their day-to-day business operations, while 37% said it was necessary for survival. Sales and marketing (93%) and purchasing (53%) are the most popular forms of e-commerce.
The biggest obstacles to progress with e-commerce are customers lack of knowledge about it, mainly a result of low computer and Internet usage, 80% of executives said. Polands Internet penetration rate the number of people with Internet access per 100 inhabitants of 14% is considered low for the countrys population of about 39 million, although it is the largest in Central Europe.
The executives identified other significant barriers to e-commerce, including a lack of a transparent regulatory framework (43%), the availability of capital to find new opportunities (33%), security issues (27%), payment standards (27%) and concerns about privacy (23%).
Among the reports other findings are:
63% of executives said the government has done too little to promote e-commerce;
80% said that European Union (EU) expansion would help e-commerce, although 47% saw no disadvantage to being outside the euro zone;
47% of executives whose businesses have undertaken e-commerce initiatives said their activities had been successful, while 40% were uncertain if they had yielded any financial benefits. Also 33% said they could not tell if they learned from mistakes in pursuing e-commerce activities;
48% of executives planned to increase their e-commerce expenditure within the next 12 months.
Only 43% of the executives, however, said Polands future prosperity depended on embracing e-commerce compared to a majority of executives in Slovakia (70%), Hungary (63%) and the Czech Republic (53%), where e-commerce is also in a development stage.
The reports results were based on 840 telephone interviews conducted in June and July with 30 board-level executives in each of 21 European countries. An additional 30 interviews were carried out with executives in South Africa. and 60 interviews with executives in each of three other countries: India, Japan and the United States. The Polish version of the report will be issued Tuesday.
