Responding to the growth in e-commerce

Over the past ten years e-commerce has become an invaluable tool for businesses large and small. Public policy makers responsible for nurturing new business growth and creating the conditions in which established businesses can expand now need to understand how the business community responds to new technology.

Consulting businesses on attitudes to and use of ICT

Yorkshire Forward conducts an annual monitor of the region’s e-business and e-commerce performance. Their objective was to benchmark businesses’ ICT use and compare the results over time and against research by European partners.

QA Research was chosen to conduct the 2006 ICT Regional Benchmarking Study. 2,500 Computer Aided Telephone Interviews (CATI) were made from our in-house call centre to a representative cross-sample of businesses, from SMEs to companies employing 250 or more staff.

The range of questions covered included: the importance of e-commerce; use of online ordering and invoicing facilities; awareness of e-commerce business security facilities such as Virus Checking or Protection Software and password protected systems; reasons for not using the Internet; the likelihood of upgrading to Broadband; training needs; and sources of e-commerce or IT advice.

ICT audience segmentation revealed

The research segmented businesses into Strategic Adopters, Advanced Connectors, Basic Connectors and Non-Adopters.

• Strategic Adopters are established e-commerce businesses, using it for online processing, managing customer relationships and for trading online with customers.
• Basic and Advanced Connectors agree e-business is important but are significantly less likely than Connectors to use ICT for finance and accounts, online processing and customer relationship management.
• Non-Adopters have strong attitudinal or behavioural problems with ICT. They are unable or unwilling to see the relevance of e-commerce to their businesses.

Our research provided robust, actionable recommendations, giving Yorkshire Forward the opportunity to target segments with tailored marketing messages designed to raise awareness of ICT and improve business performance.