The Use of Hosted Enterprise Applications by SMEs: A User Perspective

This paper seeks to deepen our understanding of the engagement of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in hosted enterprise applications (high complexity e-business applications) in the UK by investigating the relevance of organisational and technical factors through conducting interviews with SME users of hosted applications. The emergence and development of the application service provider (ASP) sector has attracted much interest and highly optimistic forecasts for revenues. Of particular interest in this paper is the emergence of service offerings targeted specifically at SMEs. The paper starts by considering information technology (IT) adoption by SMEs in general before reviewing the provision of hosted enterprise applications in the US and UK. The empirical data collected from SME users of hosted enterprise applications is then analysed in order to produce the key findings and conclusions. From an SME user perspective the key findings to emerge from the study include: i) confirmation that ICT infrastructure was no longer a barrier to adoption, ii) the pragmatic approach taken to security issues, iii) the use of both multiple information systems (hosted and resident) and service providers, iv) the attractiveness of the rental cost model and v) the intention to continue or extend their use of hosted applications within the enterprise. The early promise of the ASP sector appears not to have been generally realised for SMEs in the UK. This study explores the experience of early adopters of this new IT related innovation and identifies some significant business gains experienced by SME users. It also highlights the opportunity for gaining competitive advantage by using hosted enterprise applications to reduce costs. There are very few empirical studies of hosted applications which take a deliberately SME user perspective and this paper make an important contribution in this emerging field

Electronic Commerce Strategy for Small and Medium Enterprises: Case Studies of Korean Firms

Business firms are increasingly taking part in online business activities through internet as the size of the e-commerce market is rapidly growing in the recent years. Electronic commerce (EC) activities now become an essential part of the business strategy for survival as well as growth for both large enterprises and small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Previous studies on e-commerce mostly focused on the adoption of EC by business firms, and also have been carried out with the data from big enterprises. More often than not, the results obtained from the large business firms are used to provide the guidelines for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are, however, different from large business firms in many aspects, and need to be studied on their own. This paper extends the previous research on EC in two aspects. Firstly, we study the e-commerce issues in the area of implementation in relation to the business firm\u27s performance, beyond the adoption and diffusion of IT technology which has been the research issues in many previous research. Secondly, we focus on small and medium enterprises which comprise a large portion of national economy with significant influenc

An Examination of the Benefits of E-Business to Small and Medium Size Businesses

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) play a significant part in economies throughout the world. In the early developmental stages of e-commerce/e-business many believed that it would enable these SMEs to compete head-to-head with large companies. While much has been done to examine the adoption of e-commerce/e-business, few have addressed the benefit that it is providing these businesses. This study identifies the types of e-commerce that SMEs are using and examines the benefits that are received from this use

The Use of Hosted Enterprise Applications by SMEs: A Dual Market and User Perspective

YesThis deliberately dual perspective paper seeks to deepen our understanding of the engagement of SMEs in hosted enterprise applications in the UK. The emergence and development of the ASP sector has attracted much interest and highly optimistic forecasts for revenues. The paper starts by considering ICT adoption by SMEs in general before reviewing the provision of hosted enterprise applications in the US and UK (market perspective). The study is extended by qualitative empirical data collected by semi-structured interviews with SME users of hosted enterprise applications (user perspective) and subsequent analysis in order to develop the key findings and conclusions. From an SME user perspective the key findings to emerge from the study include: i) confirmation that ICT infrastructure was no longer a barrier to adoption, ii) the pragmatic approach taken to security issues, iii) the use of both multiple information systems and multiple service providers, iv) the financial attractiveness of the rental model and v) the intention to continue or extend the use of hosted applications. It also highlights the opportunity for gaining competitive advantage by using hosted enterprise applications to reduce costs. There are very few empirical studies of hosted applications which take deliberately market and SME user perspectives - this paper makes an important contribution in this emerging field

Comparison of E-Commerce Practices between Large Enterprises and Small to Medium Enterprises

E-commerce becomes an important element of the business strategy for both small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large enterprises as online business and cyber market space continue to expand its size and volume. E-commerce has a particularly important implication for SMEs because it can help SMEs overcome many handicaps of the SMEs, such as the economies of scale, and compete against the large enterprises on the level ground. The two groups of business firms, large enterprises and SMEs, are often different in not only their sizes but also their business practices. This may also extend to how they use e-commerce in their business. This paper is to study whether there are differences in using e-commerce between large enterprises and SMEs, and what are the differences and why the differences are made. We compare the two groups of business firms in two aspects, format of implementation and their performance. Data used for the study is collected from a group of Korean firms

Small Tourism Accomodation Distribution Patterns in Canada

A review of the previous research on small businesses in tourism and hospitality shows a growing interest in Internet marketing. However, the research that exists is contradictory. On the one hand, some researchers suggest that because the entry barriers are low, it is cost effective for small businesses to set up an Internet presence, which helps level the playing field between small and large firms [18]; [21]. However, other researchers indicate that ecommerce is not being adopted as readily by small tourism and hospitality businesses as one might have expected [17]; [6]; [31]. Clearly, more research is required in this area regarding Internet usage in small tourism and hospitality businesses. This study will therefore examine small businesses (less than 50 employees) – specifically Bed and Breakfasts (B&Bs) - to develop theories identifying factors that facilitate and inhibit the adoption and implementation of Internet technology in the accommodation sector

Cross-Organizational and Cross-Border IS/IT Collaboration: A Literature Review

The topic of collaboration in cross-organizational and cross-border settings is an emerging subfield of information systems research. This paper presents a compressive literature review of 52 research papers, published from 2000 to 2007, in four leading journals. The focus of the analysis are topics of investigation, sources of data, and the underlying theories. The results indicate that most of the research still focuses on a limited number of technical issues related to inter-organizational systems adoption. The identified research gaps which represent promising research opportunities are discussed

Strategies for small businesses selling online

Numerous books and articles have been written advising businesses how to set up a successful ecommerce website and much of this advice is relevant to small businesses. The research reported here examines this advice to generate a list of tactics and then attempts to group the tactics into strategies which describe how small businesses are using, or want to use, the Internet. Results suggest that SMEs are very customer oriented, even when dealing online. Small businesses have traditionally always been customer focused, many know their customers individually, and it is interesting to see that use of the Internet has not eroded this as some had feared. This may be due to the caution many SMEs showed by being slow to adopt the Internet or it may be the cause of this caution. The results also suggest that small businesses find it important to use the Internet to apply traditional business tenets. The things that can only be accomplished on the Internet such as personalisation are not seen as important or are seen as unimportant. It may be that small businesses do not realise the Internet’s potential in these areas or if they do realise it, they do not see them as being useful

The Barriers and Benefits of the Electronic Marketplace Environment for SMEs

Although there are many initiatives to encourage SMEs online, not all have been successful. It may therefore seem premature to discuss electronic marketplaces in the context of SMEs. However, if SMEs ignore e-marketplaces a number of problems can result. E-marketplaces present a significant threat to SMEs since they increase competition and leave nonparticipants vulnerable to more e-enabled firms. This paper examines the barriers and benefits of e-marketplaces in the context of SMEs. It first addresses the nature of emarketplaces, before identifying the benefits that may be realisable by SMEs from participation. Drawing on the literature, the barriers facing smaller firms in this environment are discussed. Identification of these barriers, such as lack of standards, supply chain integration and global trading, enables a greater understanding of how SMEs can plan effective strategies to gain from e-marketplace participation

E-Commerce experiences in the real estate industry: a preliminary study in regional Queensland

Computer systems have become commonplace in most SMEs and technology is increasingly becoming a part of doing business. In recent years, the Internet has become readily available to businesses; consequently there has been growing pressure on SMEs to take up e-Commerce. However, many perceive e-Commerce as being unproven in terms of business benefit. This research aims to determine what, if any, benefits are derived from assimilating e-Commerce technologies into SME business processes. This paper presents three in-depth case studies from the Real Estate industry in a regional setting. Overall, findings were positive and identified the following experiences: enhanced business efficiencies, cost benefits, improved customer interactions and increased business return on investment