t; Sixty-three per cent of companies now say that they have sales attributable to the Internet, up from 45 percent last year, representing a 40 per cent increase.
             · Currently, 23 per cent of respondents make Internet transactions. By 2002, 83 per cent of respondents expected they would be making Internet transactions.
             · The UK, Germany, Italy and Scandinavia emerged as the most sophisticated e-commerce countries. On a sector level, manufacturing and retail wholesale distribution are the most advanced. Overall, 12 percent of respondents now claim to be fully automated with on-line customer purchases linked to back-up office systems such as stock control. However the majority of companies, 51 per cent, are only at the stage where they have established two-way communication, but are still unable to carry out transactions on-line.
             · The ability to reach new markets or customers is seen as the most important benefit of e-commerce by 36 percent of respondents. However, speed and cost savings of e-commerce are now regarded as less important factors than a year ago. This may be because businesses have discovered that implementing e-commerce strategies is more expensive than they had originally calculated.
             · The traditional barriers to electronic trading still remain but, as expected, are shrinking. Security continues to be the greatest cause for concern, cited by 78 percent of respondents. Most significantly, in 1998, 67 percent of respondents saw lack of understanding of the benefits of being on-line as a barrier, whereas this year, only 47 percent saw this as a barrier.
             · Marketing budgets for e-commerce are increasing but are still disappointingly low as a percentage of all marketing spending.
             Research demonstrates that companies are now fully aware of the transformation that e﷓commerce will bring to their dealings with both customers and suppliers. All the companies surveyed are taking s...