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Purchase online. This shows the importance of understanding differences in the environ-

ment for e-commerce in different countries.

In summary, to estimate online revenue contribution to determine the amount of invest-

ment in digital business we need to research the number of connected customers, the 

percentage whose offline purchase is influenced online and the number who buy online.

Adoption of digital business by businesses

The European Commission reviewed adoption of the digital business services across Europe 

(EuroStat, 2013), shown in Figure 4.6. It can be seen, perhaps surprisingly, that although 

most companies now have Internet access, other digital business services such as offering a 

website or using ERP or CRM are not used so widely, particularly in small business. This cer-

tainly shows the opportunities remaining from individuals; indeed, the report states a need 

for more trained ICT specialists to assist businesses.

Figure 4.7 gives a summary of these barriers. You can see that the lack of relevance or 

need for e-commerce is the largest barrier, but organisational governance issues are also 

important.

Daniel et al. (2002) researched digital business adoption in UK SMEs and noted four clus-

ters: (1) developers, which were actively developing services, but were limited at the time of 

research; (2) communicators, which use email to communicate internally and with custom-

ers and suppliers; (3) web presence; (4) transactors.

The luxury of sufficient resources to focus on planning and implementing an Internet 

strategy isn’t open to many small businesses and is likely to explain why they have not been 

such enthusiastic adopters of digital business.