Organizational Perceptions of e-Commerce: Re-assessing the Benefits

This paper reports on preliminary findings from a wider and more in-depth study of six traditional organisations from different sectors that have successfully introduced e-commerce initiatives. The research adopted a case study approach, within which a questionnaire, identifying 16 generic benefits synthesised from the literature, was administered. The organisations were also asked to characterise whether e-commerce was strategic for them or not. The findings suggest that those organisations that perceived e-commerce to be strategic tended to consider intangible benefits as more important than tangible benefits, indicating perhaps a move away from the traditional view of e-commerce as a marketing driver to increase or create sales. Those organisations perceiving e-commerce as nonstrategic rated the tangible benefits in much the same way as the strategic organisations, but rated the intangibles lower. Also it was found that e-commerce was important as a communication tool, not only with customers, as might be expected, but also with staff within the organisation. The value of intraorganisational e-commerce was also found to be important, perhaps more than previously thought, as was its use in communicating and disseminating knowledge. The findings also reflect the importance of the sector and environment of the organisation in determining their perceptions of e-commerce.