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Abstract:
The Internet and related
technologies have made a substantial impact on the way organisations
conduct business in Australia and around the world. Australian
organisations like their international counterparts have invested
heavily to leverage the Internet and transform their traditional
businesses into e-businesses in the last seven years. E-business
investments are claiming a sizeable share of overall IT budgets in most
organisations whether they are small, medium or large. However, managers
are under constant pressure to justify e-business costs and to ensure
that these investments keep paying off. Earlier research on e-business
in Australia addressed issues of the rate of e-business uptake and the
application of the Internet to certain business processes. Research
discussed in this paper is one of the first attempts to evaluate the
value of e-business. It is based on data collected, collated and
analysed from the responses received from IT and e-business managers
throughout Australia.
Research
presented in this paper is based on a model developed in the USA (Barua
et al, 2001) to identify the impact of e-business drivers on operational
excellence of firms which influence financial improvements. It was
initiated to quantify the success of e-business in Australia after huge
losses from e-business projects were reported by a few large
organisations. The paper includes a review of literature on e-business
evaluation, research methodology, analysis techniques, a discussion of
e-business performance in Australia and presents the impact of
e-business on operational excellence and financial performance of the
organisation.
Keywords:
e-business
evaluation, B2B e-business, B2C e-business, e-business drivers,
e-business operational improvements, e-business financial success. |
