Assessing the success and evaluating the benefits of government-sponsored regional internet-trading platforms for small and medium enterprises: A Western Australian perspective

The Internet has been viewed as an opportunity for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to efficiently compete in the global arena with their larger counterparts by overcoming distance and size. However, research has shown that actual uptake of Internet e-commerce by SMEs has been lagging behind that of larger companies. Fearing a growing digital divide between large companies and SMEs, some governments have taken specific measures to encourage SME participation in ecommerce. One of the more direct government initiatives to hasten the progression of SMEs on the e-commerce adoption curve is the creation, sponsorship and management of regional Internet trading platforms for these enterprises. Such a move is predicated on the belief that these platforms will offer SMEs a low-cost introduction to participation in Internet trading platforms without the need for significant technology investments, allowing them to reap benefits like lower costs, improved customer service and new levels of innovation through knowledge-sharing

Can B2G portals be used effectively to stimulate business in SMEs?: A case analysis of the 2Cities Business To Government portal

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have many options when purchasing goods or services. These include personal contacts and networks, familiar centralised supply sources and other ad hoc means. One purchasing possibility is to buy from and sell to other businesses within a similar geographic area. The benefits of buying and selling locally may not occur to SMEs. They seek, like other consumers, to get value for money, fast and efficient service, and a reasonable level of quality. Many factors can impinge upon an SME\u27s decision to purchase locally. It can be assumed that, given a reasonable local option, SMEs wish to buy from and sell to other local businesses. It can also be reasonably expected that if government purchasers were willing to purchase within their geographic area, SMEs would be interested in supplying local government as well. This study investigates SMEs in the Wanneroo and Joondalup Regions of Western Australia and considers the factors that may influence their decision to use the 2Cities Business-to-Government (B2G) portal. The study is concerned with gaining an insight into particular phenomena from a participants\u27 perspective (SME) with the researcher as the primary instrument for data collection and analysis. The study requires the researcher to get close to the natural setting of the study and interact with the small business owners. This study triangulated results from three major sources. One source of data was contemporary Wanneroo and Joondalup secondary data gathered from research reports relating to local SME matters. This was combined with the semi-structured interviews of forty SMEs and two focus groups. Participant SMEs were invited to discuss factors affecting their decision to use or not use the 2Cities B2G portal. SMEs have a clear perception of what impedes and assists them in running their business and this comes through strongly. The problem facing the 2Cities portal management board is the extent to which it can influence the SME decision to buy and sell within the local area using the portal. The results form the basis of an improved model for B2G participation

The First 25 Years of the Bled eConference: Themes and Impacts

The Bled eConference is the longest-running themed conference associated with the Information Systems discipline. The focus throughout its first quarter-century has been the application of electronic tools, migrating progressively from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS) and eCommerce to encompass all aspects of the use of networking facilities in industry and government, and more recently by individuals, groups and society as a whole. This paper reports on an examination of the conference titles and of the titles and abstracts of the 773 refereed papers published in the Proceedings since 1995. This identified a long and strong focus on categories of electronic business and corporate perspectives, which has broadened in recent years to encompass the democratic, the social and the personal. The conference\u27s extend well beyond the papers and their thousands of citations and tens of thousands of downloads. Other impacts have included innovative forms of support for the development of large numbers of graduate students, and the many international research collaborations that have been conceived and developed in a beautiful lake-side setting in Slovenia

Business Culture and the Death of a Portal

After receiving a Government grant under an ‘e-commerce early movers’ scheme, the Western Region Economic Development Organisation in Melbourne conceived and developed a business-to-business portal for use by small to medium enterprises (SME) in the region. This innovative project was to create a horizontal portal – Bizewest, which would enable the whole range of SMEs in Melbourne’s west to engage in e-commerce transactions with each other. E-commerce portals come in all shapes and sizes, but they all have one thing in common: they all involve interactions between information technology and people. Information systems are complex socio-technical entities and research into their implementation needs to take account of this. The research reported here was socio-technical in nature and was based on considering this innovation through the lens of innovation translation, informed by actor-network theory (ANT). No matter how good the portal software, the final success or failure of the portal is primarily related to how well it is adopted and used. This paper outlines the development of the Bizewest Portal and the difficulty its proponents had in persuading regional SMEs to change their business culture to make best use of on-line trading with each other. This difficulty in changing business culture led to Bizewest’s ultimate demise