Best practice in SME adoption of ecommerce

• Published in: Benchmarking : an international journal Vol. 9; no. 2; pp. 122 - 132
• Main Authors: Jeffcoate, Judith, Chappell, Caroline, Feindt, Sylvie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: MCB UP Ltd 01.05.2002
• Subjects: Benchmarking; Internet; Smalltomediumsized enterprises
• ISSN: 1463-5771
• DOI: 10.1108/14635770210421791

Describes how small businesses involved in ecommerce may benchmark their performance against a number of critical success factors CSFs. The proposed approach is based on a series of interviews carried out amongst smalltomediumsized enterprises SMEs whose activities were judged to represent best practice in ecommerce. Encourages an SME to analyse its own strengths and weaknesses on a continuing basis and to compare them with those of its competitors. The first step in this process is to identify the companys attitude to growth. Next, the SME should establish a suitable generic strategy and decide on a set of objectives that support it. Finally, it should identify a set of relevant CSFs. Analysis of the KITE interviews identified 11 CSFs relevant to the competitive performance of SMEs entering the ecommerce market. Further research currently being undertaken as part of a followup study will be used to validate this approach.