E-Commerce Maturity Model (Compariosn of Four Models)

Contents Introduction 2 Wrycza et al. s Research (2007) 3 Rao et al. s research (2003) 5 Prananto et al. s research (2004) 7 Alonso Mendo and Fitzgerald s research (2005) 9 The usefulness of using E-Commerce Maturity Model (ECMM) 11 Conclusion 14 Reference 14 Introduction In today s economy, organisations try to gain strategic and operational advantages over other competitors in their industry because of the rapid advance of technology and globalisation. Companies can have great opportunities to sell their products to new customers, to buy cheap raw materials from new suppliers and to have new business partners in other countries via internet. Therefore, many organisations have introduced E-business as†¦show more content†¦Figure 1. The adoption of a stage model by Pomeranian SMEs (Wrycza et al., 2007) However, the survey also indicates that there is awareness of using the contingent model with technology parks, which bring the innovative e-business concepts, as the central figure. The stage model in this article clearly classifies the level of e-business maturity into five stages from internet access to digital ecosystems. It will provide a future roadmap of e-business development to SMEs which do not especially have theoretical or technical expertise in e-business. For IS/IT mangers and senior management, even though they do not have expertise related to e-business, they can easily understand this simple model and have a blueprint for the future (Parnanto et al., 2003). Moreover, Figure 1 indirectly shows that the e-business adoption of SMEs follows the ladder shaped (staged) model. However, this stage model is oversimplified. Target audiences, such as IT managers, CIO and CEO, can not know in detail when they are able to move to the next stage, which conditions should be satisfied to go forward and which barriers they might face in their movement. Mehrtens et al (2001) stresses that there are three important factors, which can influence SMEs decision making in internet adoption, including perceived benefits, organisational readiness and external pressures. When companies are aware of current benefits