E-Business Survey

Chambers of Commerce of Ireland has just reported on the fifth wave of an e-business survey amongst small and medium enterprises (under 250 employees) in Ireland. Since its inception in 1999 the research has been conducted by MORI Ireland's dedicated telephone research centre in Dublin.

Internet penetration rates amongst SMEs has risen steadily since 2000; currently 92% of companies have access to the Internet. In real terms this represents a 33% increase in internet access amongst SMEs since 2000. Moreover, the eight percentage point increase since 2002 is reassuring given the difficult business climate.

Internet penetration in seven of the eight regions (Border, Dublin, Mid East, Midlands, Mid West, South East, South West) is over 90%, however, access in the West is only 75%, highlighting that a geographical technological divide identified in previous waves still exists.

The data suggests that current penetration levels are very close to saturation point with two-thirds of companies who do not have access to the Internet commenting that they were very unlikely (55%) or fairly unlikely (11%) to connect to the Internet within the next 12 months.

Connection to the Internet is still primarily by ISDN or a standard telephone line and though both are declining in popularity, they are still dominant with a collective market share of 81%. Although only introduced in Ireland earlier this year broadband enjoyed a take-up of 13% amongst SMEs.

The research also highlighted the difficulties SMEs have in upgrading their internet connection with almost two in every five attempts failing, primarily due to the lack of services available in the locality, cost was also identified as a factor.

E-mail (97%) and to source information (91%) are the most common applications SMEs are using their Internet connection for. Although on-line banking (55%) and revenue on-line (32%) services are increasing in popularity. Close to half (47%) of all SMEs with internet capability received orders on-line.

Website penetration amongst SMEs has almost doubled since 2000, with the associated figure rising from 34% to 64% in only four years. Again there are regional disparities with a website penetration figure of 85% in the South West compared to a corresponding figure of only 48% in the West.

Of those companies who do not have website capabilities over two in five (42%) said they were very likely (27%) or quite likely (15%) to establish a website presence within the next 12 months.

Technical details

The survey sampled 601 small to medium enterprises in Ireland. All (except for 44 businesses) SMEs interviewed were CCI members. All companies surveyed had less than 250 employees. This year, the survey was conducted on behalf of CCI by MORI Ireland in early September 2003.

This survey is based on work commissioned by the CCI and sponsored by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The view expressed in this survey are the author's (MORI Ireland) own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the commissioning bodies.