A recent global survey has revealed most CEOs have good intentions when it comes to e-commerce, but that no clear consensus exists among them on how to integrate it into the big business and IS strategic planning picture.
The “World IT Strategy Census 2001” was conducted earlier this year by London Business School and commissioned by Compass, a global management consulting firm.
According to the survey, two-thirds of respondents have a formal e-business strategy in place. Roughly half of CEOs reported major personal involvement with their company’s e-business strategy and 23 per cent minor involvement. Similar levels were reported with respect to CEO involvement in their company’s IS strategy.
When asked to cite their major challenges in e-business strategy formulation, 15 per cent of respondents said achieving successful return on investment, 14 per cent indicated the need to deliver customer benefits while at the same time educating customers to take advantage of e-business offers and 11 per cent pointed to alignment between systems and software, including finding the right partners and suppliers.
The 2001 Census polled CEOs and senior executives of 201 companies across seven sectors from Canada, the United States, Australia and 11 European countries.