A new study of more than 1,000 businesses in the U.S. and Europe concludes that companies are not tapping the full potential of the Internet marketplace.
"Our study suggests that there still is a long way to go for companies to fully exploit this technology," said Andrew Winston, one of the four authors of the study released Thursday from the University of Texas at Austin's Center for Research in Electronic Commerce.
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The 74-question survey commissioned by Dell Computer suggests businesses still can make gains on the Internet in areas like developing online supplier relationships and redesigning business processes. A strong correlation exists between financial performance and business technology drivers, such as system integration, customer orientation and supplier-related processes and trading partner readiness.
A majority of businesses have developed Web sites with product information (74%), but the companies have not integrated functions like customization (55%), order status (44%) and capabilities for customer feedback and quality issues (29%).
The study of retailers, manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers concludes that companies with less than $1 million in revenue have an increase in return of capital invested of 50.2%, compared to 20.9% for firms with $10 million in revenue.
"Small firms can have immediate impact by going online," said Prabhudev Konana, a study author.
Winston suggested it will take not only internal company change, but also alternations in the attitudes of the companies that a business deals with to both accelerate and exploit the benefits of the Internet.
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