e-Business Adoption by Manufacturing SMEs in Regional Australia

Using the Internet for electronic business has become an area of action for the Australian Government, and programs have focussed on raising the awareness of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to the opportunities offered by doing business on-line. As the manufacturing industry in Australia has experienced productivity improvements, the outlook is strong and Australian manufacturing SMEs are ideally placed to gain a competitive advantage in global trade. The results of this research indicate that while most manufacturing SMEs in regional Australia use computers, with a majority using email, only a small percentage utilise the Internet for transaction processing. Major barriers to becoming involved in electronic business are identified as concern about security and privacy of transactions, cost of consultants, and lack of IT expertise of staff. Examination of planned IT staff training methods reveal that employing people with appropriate knowledge has been added to current methods such as on-the-job training. Results from two regional areas are compared.