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when fulfilling purely marketing purposes, it would involve significant investments:
IDE will need to promote its innovative image also through the web medium and
should differentiate the structure of its web site, according to both its multiple
clients and products.
The complexity of the product/client mix should also drive the adoption of an on
line pre/post sales support: the development of customized solution, although initially
requiring a strong financial effort, could provide high level customer service, supporting a
differentiation strategy.
Finally, the financial availability and degree of innovation should push IDE,
whenever considering
on line order processing, to a solution integrating the logistic
support, possibly completed by an on line payment system (as for the TIE, devoted
to support business to consumer transactions).
CONCLUSIONS
The increasing diffusion of Internet applications and especially EC are making
companies of any size consider their adoption. This work aimed at supporting the
entrepreneur in evaluating the most suitable EC solution for his/her organization
and strategic goals. This goal has been pursued through the classification of five
main EC activities, characterized by different requirements and possible results:
before planning an EC investment, companies should assess the strategic impor-
tance of their value chain activities, to determine which EC approach could turn
out to be more profitable.
The identification of the main business variables involved in an EC project and
the resulting classification of SME profiles should help the entrepreneur in becom-
ing aware of his/her organization. Finally, the cross analysis between EC activities
and SME profiles should drive the choice of the most suitable EC solution for
each profile.
The developed framework provides SMEs with a simple and easy to use tool to
perform a qualitative
evaluation of the EC opportunity. If in the next future the expected
growth of Internet connections will take place, those SMEs who will have invested
in EC could have the chance to exploit precious competitive and know-how
benefits, avoiding the risk to lose those customers who decided to make EC the
key channel for their commercial activities.