Internet editorial

Internet editorial

The editorial staff of Benchmarking: An International Journal is committed to helping those working at a senior level in industry, the public sector, consultancy, or academic institutions, to stay current on developments in the areas of quality, technology and benchmarking. The focus of the journal is on “topics that have substantial management content, rather than being primarily technical in nature”. The Internet editorials will center on sites with a similar focus. I examine sites that I feel would be of interest to BIJ readers and report my findings. I attempt to be fair and objective in the presentation of my findings.

The Internet, or more specifically the World Wide Web, is without question one of the most important developments of the twentieth century. It has and will continue to have a profound impact on our lives at work, at school, at home and at play. It is changing in some very fundamental ways the way we think about education, entertainment, leisure time, business, and even the way we think about ourselves. One very important development growing out of the Internet revolution is a phenomenon we have dubbed electronic commerce or e-commerce. E-commerce is changing the way we think about the buying and selling of goods and services. Place has become less important in buying behavior. Largely because of the convenience made possible by e-commerce, it is now much easier for me to buy a used vehicle from anyone in the USA or Canada, even though I live in Arkansas. My choices need no longer be limited to what might be available in the town where I live or in nearby towns – local markets. I can shop the entire country for a used vehicle that meets my needs, greatly increasing the alternatives available to me. Online auctions, online auto sales sites, and even online newspapers make this possible. Rather than pay high prices at the local pharmacy for prescription drugs, I can go beyond the borders of the USA and purchase them in Canada or Mexico where prices are lower. Were it not for the Government restricting my ability to do so, I could buy prescription drugs, as well as many other products, from anywhere in the world. If the cost of freight (fast by air or slow by boat) plus purchase cost and taxes adds up to less that I would pay locally, I win! The ramifications for competition are astounding, as is the potential for e-commerce to positively impact my life. I can participate in a global market without leaving the comfort of my home. Businesses are not particularly pleased with some of the changes in consumer behavior growing out of e-commerce when it diminishes their power as a seller. They are, on the other hand, quite happy with evolving business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce models that increase their power as a consumer of inputs needed to run a business. Evolving business models like the reverse auction offer businesses the opportunity to achieve considerable savings on purchased inputs. Not only that, e-commerce vastly extends the reach of businesses, allowing them to sell to consumers over a much broader geographic area, and to reach market niches they could not reach before. B2B e-commerce, the network supported transactions (buying and selling of goods and services) among business enterprises, is the fastest growing area of e-commerce, but others are important. Among the growing list of e-commerce categories, one will find the three already mentioned, B2B, business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), as well as others like business-to-government (B2G), government-to-consumer (G2C), and government-to-government (G2G) e-commerce. They are all important and are expected to become more so in the future. The growing importance of e-commerce is precisely the reason I have devoted this Internet editorial to benchmarking e-commerce.

The searches

In all of my Internet editorials, I provide information about searches and search engines as well as benchmarking sites. Before conducting the searches for this editorial, I sought to identify two search engines that I had not used in past editorials. Most of the sites featured herein were found using MSN Search and Wisenut.com. In addition to using these two “new” search engines (new in the sense that it is the first time I used them in preparing my editorials), I used Google.com so to have a yardstick for comparison. I selected the search engines introduced herein from a list of search engines published on searchenginewatch.com. I have mentioned this site in other editorials. It is a good site to help one find the “right” search engine for the task at hand. The site has much good information on search engines and how to make one’s searches efficient and effective. While visiting the site, I checked the Neilson NetRating list and Google, my preferred search engine, was on the top of the list. I was not surprised.

I used three search phrases for my searches in this editorial. The search phrases and hits produced by each using Google were as follows:

1. 1.

   “benchmarking electronic commerce”, 64,600 hits;

2. 2.

   “benchmarking e-commerce”, 75,300 hits; and

3. 3.

   “benchmarking e-business”, 72,200 hits.

As noted, I conducted these searches in Google because I intended to use it as the standard by which to evaluate MSN Search and Wisenut.com. My searches using MSN Search (http://search.msn.com) yielded useful results, but few hits that I had not already found using Google. Microsoft does a good job with their search engine in terms of tuning it from time to time to keep up with the changing needs of net surfers. Although most of the “fancy” features were of little value to me in my searches, I should acknowledge that Microsoft shows much interest in keeping MSN Search well positioning among the top rated search engines. The result of their effort is a search engine that gets better over time. MSN Search is of course a Web crawler, using many search engines to find appropriate links. The search phrases and hits produced for my searches using MSN Search were as follows:

1. 1.

   “benchmarking electronic commerce”, 24,006 hits;

2. 2.

   “benchmarking e-commerce”, 28,074 hits; and

3. 3.

   “benchmarking e-business”, 21,499 hits.

The summaries provided on the hit lists provided useful information about what to expect from targeted site and pages, but not even the hits at the top of list, compared favorably with the hit lists produced by Google in terms of relevance. Wisenut.com searches were not much more helpful than the MSN searches. Wisenut is another crawler-based search engine reported to produce good relevancy (see Searchenginewatch.com). It is somewhat new having been introduced in 2001, yet it is not in good repair. The hit lists produced by Wisenut for my searches had more linkrot than I have seen on any search engine in quite some time. On the positive side Wisenut possesses features that I do like, such as the ability to set search preferences. One can follow the “Set preferences” link on the WiseNut “Search” page to a form for tailoring one’s searches. On that form one can set the number of hits listed per page, indicate what languages to include/exclude (I only read English so having non-English pages or sites on my hit lists does me little good), avoid redundant hits by grouping pages from the same site under one result, and so on. The ability to set preferences helps make one’s searches more efficient. Using the same search phrases in Wisenut as used for Google and MSN searches, the results were as follows:

1. 1.

   “benchmarking electronic commerce”, 17,956 hits;

2. 2.

   “benchmarking e-commerce”, 33,004 hits; and

3. 3.

   “benchmarking e-business”, 91,017 hits.

Wisenut search results contained good summaries telling you where you were going (link target) and what, pertaining to your search topic, you would find (article, report, organization, etc.) at the destination. Even though Wisenut had some useful features, the linkrot was unacceptable. Most users quickly tire of following “dead end” links. I also found Wisenut to be somewhat slow in producing hit lists, especially in comparison Google. With so many search engines from which to choose, there is little reason to tolerate malfunctioning links and slow searches. Unless it improves, I do not believe I shall be using Wisenut again. To end this discussion of Wisenut on a positive note, I want to point out that Searchenginewatch.com reported that Look Smart purchased Wisenut in 2002, and plans to update the Wisenut database. All in all I must say that my searches powered by MSN Search and Wisenut produced few hits that I had not already found with my Google searches.

Google is still my favorite search engine, but I will continue to search for something better. No pun intended! I hope this examination of different search engines helps BIJ readers as they attempt to locate information regarding benchmarking and related topics on the Web. Now, on to the featured sites! Please note that featured sites may be the property of “for-profit” enterprises, and that the principal purpose of such sites is the promotion and sale of the goods and services of the owners. My review of those sites is not a recommendation of the goods or services of those entities.

Electronic Commerce Measurement Through Intelligent Agentshttp://www.ermisproject.gr/

The Electronic Commerce Measurement Through Intelligent Agents (ERMIS) project is aimed at measuring e-commerce. More specifically, ERMIS hopes to design, develop and validate an integrated system for measuring and monitoring electronic commerce. The organization hopes to create statistical measures or metrics, that can be implemented through the use of agents to collect data and precisely measure the e-commerce performance of countries, regions, industries and more. ERMIS was formed because consortium participants perceived a need for such measurement in response to the rapid expansion and growing importance of e-commerce in our increasingly global economy. It is important to understand that the mission of ERMIS is not actually to produce tools and metrics for individual firms, but rather to develop metrics and tools that are useful at a higher level for monitoring economic performance in order to make sound policy and administrative decisions in government and beyond. ERMIS is concerned with the assessment of structural impacts of e-commerce on market conditions and function. Metrics for evaluating e-commerce performance of a country’s economy, or the performance of different regions of a country, are more what they have in mind. The kind of data they expect to produce would be quite like census data collected by the governments of many countries. This does not mean that ERMIS products would not be beneficial to private entities using benchmarking. ERMIS in fact states that they believe that the methodologies and tools they develop will likely be useful to consulting firms, research centers and organizations that have adopted various e-commerce models. In short, their contribution should be significant in the assessment of e-commerce at the macro and micro levels. Specific products of ERMIS include statistical survey designs (methods, tools, indicators and indexes) “For the assessment of e-commerce structural impact to markets, based on the measurement of the abundance and usage of impact producing mechanisms”. Products already in development include an e-commerce structural impact household panel survey, an e-commerce structural impact enterprise panel survey, and an e-commerce structural impact Web survey. The gathering of data is to be done largely with intelligent agents over the Web. Participants in the ERMIS consortium include:

• •

  Liaison Systems (a team of data architects and information miners that specialize in statistics for large-scale public and private projects);

• •

  the National Technical Institute of Athens;

• •

  the University of Naples; and

• •

  the Robert Schuman University Center of Studies of Applied Management Sciences.

Now we turn our attention to the ERMIS site.

The ERMIS site is not very large and not exactly loaded with information. One would expect the value of the site to increase over time as ERMIS projects come to fruition. It has the potential to evolve into a very useful site pertaining to e-commerce measurement generally, and to be of value to individual firms concerned with benchmarking their own e-commerce performance. The “Project” link accesses a page that provides a rather concise explanation of main ERMIS project. It is future oriented, describing what consortium participants expect to be the future outcome of the project. You must keep in mind that the project is in its infancy and there is far to go to achieve the rather noble aims of the ERMIS consortium. There is one particularly interesting link on the “Project” page called “Statistical indicators”. That link is also accessible on the “Products” page, but there the link is labeled “Statistical indicators portal”. The Statistical Indicator links access a page that describes many of types of statistical indicators pertaining to e-commerce. Indicators are grouped by name, by type, by stage (e-commerce stage – readiness, intensity, impact) and by organization (issuing organization). Each indicator is itself a link and moves one to a page that describes the indicator, the nature of the survey, identifies the organization that conducted the survey (complete with links where available), and it lets one know whether or not the survey is available over the Web. If the survey is available over the Web, links provide access to the survey itself, the results, and/or a description of the survey. Because of the nature of the information provided on the Statistical Indicator page, it could be quite helpful to those with an interest in benchmarking some area of e-commerce performance. Another potentially useful link on the “Product” page is labeled “New statistical indicators”. That link accesses pages describing new statistical indicators produced, or should I say, to be produced from studies conducted by consortium members. “Statistical indicators” are divided into two categories: “New statistical indicators from e-commerce site operators”; and “New statistical indicators from e-commerce users”. Each category contains multiple links. Here I found a problem with linkrot, but after examining more links and pages, I formed the impression that the links are “planned” links–they will provide tools and data as produced by the ERMIS program in the future. In other words, much work remains to be done in making all the tools and data available for site visitors. Since the “New statistical indicators” links did not function, I could not assess the content of targeted pages or sites. Another link on the “Products” page was quite interesting. That was the “Collection tools” link. Agent-based data collection tools, like those used by the ERMIS consortium, are available/will be available for download, complete with instructions for download, installation and use. I did not download them for evaluation, so I cannot comment on the value of the tools. A “Surveys and analyses” link offers more of the same. It appears that over time the “Projects” and “Products” areas of the site might evolve into highly valuable source of tools and data. At present, projects and products offer promise but not much in the way of tangible results. The “Community” link on the main ERMIS page has some interesting links worth mentioning. The “Community” page has links that will allow one to sign up for an newsletter (“Mailing list” link), keep one abreast of developments in the ERMIS program, join a ERMIS user group (“User group” link), become a registered member of ERMIS (“Register” link), examine publications (“Publications” link), or examine links (“Links” link) to other organizations and projects pertaining to e-commerce. A “Survey” link accesses a page with links to surveys in Italian, English, Greek and French. The “Publications” link accesses a page with links to some interesting articles and reports about measuring e-commerce performance, most of which were written by consortium members involved in ERMIS projects. The “Links” page contained links to journals, Universities, other research consortiums and projects, and more – some could be helpful. In conclusion, I would have to say that the ERMIS site has little more than a promise to offer at present, but if it delivers on its promise, it may eventually become a valuable resource for those interested in benchmarking electronic commerce on a macro level (county, region, etc.) or a micro level (level of the firm or industry).

Electronic Commerce in Canadahttp://e-com.ic.gc.ca/

Electronic Commerce in Canada is the official site of the Canadian Task Force on Electronic Commerce in Canada (ECA). ECA describes itself as the “virtual focal point for information on Canada’s electronic commerce strategy, outlining the various initiatives that are helping make Canada a world leader in the adoption and use of electronic commerce”. The site demonstrates the close collaboration between Canada’s private sector and its federal government in creating an environment conducive to the rapid development of e-commerce in Canada. The site’s content suggests a strong commitment by both the public and private sector to making e-commerce a top priority. They seem convinced that the future success of the Canadian economy will depend on the extent to which it becomes a key participant in the evolving digital economy of the twenty-first century. When visiting the site, a good starting point would be to follow the link entitled “Canada’s electronic commerce strategy”. The strategy outlines some of the initiatives that are believed to be critical in Canada’s bid to become a key player in the global digital economy. Issues like building trust in the technology, protecting privacy, encouraging standards, and encouraging innovation and investment in technology, are addressed in the statement of strategy. Furthermore, the strategy suggests not just a commitment to encouraging business and consumers to embrace e-commerce, but also a commitment by the Canadian government to embracing e-commerce through the adoption of B2G, G2G, and G2C models for its own operations. The Canadian e-commerce strategy is quite interesting and demonstrates a commitment to transform the vision into action that leads to success.

Perhaps the first thing that I should mention about the site is that the opening page of the site reflects the existence of what some call the two Canadas – French Canada (for the most part, Quebec) and English Canada (the rest of Canada). One must opt for the English or French version of the site on entry. From what I could gather (I speak little French) the site content is the same for both versions, just the language is different. There is a handy index on the ECA homepage that can help one to find material anywhere on the site. Each letter of the index accesses a page with content links organized alphabetically for convenience. This index can make it easy to find information on the site. Also at the top of the ECA homepage, there are two links, one entitled “Business support and financing” and the other is the “Electronic commerce in Canada” link. The “Business support and financing” site is Canada’s business and consumer site. The “Electronic commerce in Canada” site is the one featured herein, because it is devoted to e-commerce. A dropdown list entitled “Site categories” appears on the upper right hand side of the ECA homepage. This dropdown list seemed handy at first, but then I realized that most of its links were the same that appear on the left side of the ECA homepage. The exceptions were “What’s new”, “About the task force”, “Search e-com”, “Contact us”, and “Help”. “Search e-com” seemed to offer a handy alternative to the “Index” to help find specific information on the site. It helped me little because my searches on “Benchmarking” and “Benchmarks” produced errors. Apparently, a script error occurred in processing my query. This could be a temporary problem, but it was discouraging. I thought my search of the site for benchmarking related information would be quick and easy. I looked on the “Index” for benchmarking and found a couple of links directly related to benchmarking, but elsewhere on the list I found other information under measurement and statistics that would pertain more directly to benchmarking e-commerce. One should be willing to browse around the site to find information pertaining to benchmarking e-commerce. Such information can be found on the site, but one must be creative and persistent to find it. A good link to examine on the home page is “The news room” link. The “News room” has links to “News releases”, “Presentations”, and “Speeches”. Also in “The news room”, under the heading of “Media tools”, one will find links to a “Glossary”, a list of “Acronyms” and their meaning, and a “Bibliography”. The “Bibliography” page, accessed using the “Bibliography” link, had links to many interesting articles pertaining to e-commerce, as well as sites pertaining to e-commerce. I encountered some linkrot at this point – some of the links were outdated. The so-called “Backgrounders” links found in “the news room” were of some interest. Those links accessed short summaries of things like Canada’s cryptography policy and provincial law pertaining to the protection of personal privacy. Also on the ECA homepage, one will find a link for “Electronic commerce policy”. That link accesses a page describing various Canadian policies pertaining to e-commerce, complete with links to documents providing more detail. Policies pertaining to personal privacy, taxation and the likes can be examined on the “Policies” page. The “Success stories” link on the homepage should be of interest to visitors interested in benchmarking e-commerce. That link accesses a page, complete with alphabetical index, with links to many success stories about organizations (public and private) engaged in e-commerce. Links on the left navigation bar found on that page categorize success stories into groups like “Business to business”, “Business to consumer”, and “Submit your own”. The “Submit your own” link allows a business to submit information about its own success story. Most success stories have e-mail links and site links that would enable one to learn more about the experiences of those “successful” organizations. The homepage “Research and statistics” link offers promise for those interested in benchmarking e-commerce. Statistics are grouped into categories like “Business to business”, “Business to consumer”, “International”, and “Research reports”. Each category has a link to a page with links to statistics or studies pertaining to that category. The homepage has a link called “Resources and links”, that accesses a page with many, many sites and pages of interest. Links are grouped under headings like “Using electronic commerce”, “International organizations” and “Key documents, reports and publications”. Other links of interest on the home page include an “E-business roundtable” link, an “International activities” link, and numerous links under the heading of “Features”, to things like news releases, relevant statistics, e-commerce initiatives and more. Time does not permit a detailed discussion all of the ECA site’s content and links, simply because the site was so vast. My overall impression of the ECA site is quite positive. It is a good e-commerce site with much information. The site is well designed making it pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. Some linkrot was encountered but very little, leading me to conclude that the site is current and well maintained. Although not devoted exclusively to benchmarking e-commerce, the site does have content and links that would be of interest to visitors interested specifically in e-commerce benchmarking, particularly if they are Canadian.

E-Commerce Awardshttp://www.ecommerce-awards.touchtools.co.uk/

The E-Commerce Awards site showcases the accomplishments of small businesses engaged in e-commerce. The 2003 National E-Commerce Awards are run by UK Online for Business and InterForum. UK Online for Business is a partnership between industry and government in the UK that promotes the use of information and communication technologies in small businesses. InterForum is a “not for profit” organization that helps British businesses trade electronically. National sponsors of the E-Commerce Awards include Cisco Systems, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and the Sunday Times Enterprise Network. Organizations that win the award must have demonstrated excellence in their business use of the Internet. It was 27 days until the launch of the 2003 awards competition when I visited the site for this editorial, and the countdown was on. Benchmarking is about identifying best practice and evaluating ones performance against best practice. Best practice can be found within one’s own organization, within one’s industry, or beyond. Organizations can benchmark their performance against best practice anywhere it can be found. Since the E-Commerce Awards site focuses on best practice in e-commerce by awarding outstanding performance by small businesses in this important area, it seemed fitting to include the site in this editorial.

The E-Commerce Awards are open to organizations in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland that employ fewer than 250 employees. The Scots have their own awards called “Winners at the Web Awards”, but winners of that award compete with other UK winners in the category finals. Awards are open to organizations of all types, public and private, so long as they meet the criteria. Regional winners are selected for four categories. They then compete for the title of overall national winner. The four categories for competition are as follows:

1. 1.

   “E-business start up” (fewer than ten employees – trading for more than one but less than two years);

2. 2.

   “E-trading” (selling products and services online and having from ten to 249 employees);

3. 3.

   “E-business” (meeting size criteria and excelling in areas such as supply chain automation);

4. 4.

   “Voluntary and community sector” (largely for non-profits and governmental units).

A new awards category was added for 2003. This new “National Innovation Category Award”, will recognize organizations for “demonstrating innovative and sustained use of technology to improve their business through the use of broadband, mobile, or through the influence of a TMB accredited advisor”. Award winners receive a rather substantial cash award, not to mention the favorable publicity winning the award brings their way.

Clearly, the site is devoted primarily to the contest, but I will describe some of its contents that might be of interest to those interested in best practice and benchmarking. First, there is the “Past winners” link found on the E-Commerce Awards homepage navigation bar. That link affords access to a page where one will find links to information about winners going back as far as 1999. Links are organized chronologically (1999, 2000, etc.). The pages for each year contain links to the sites of regional winners, national category winners (four of them), and of course a link to the “National champion” – the big winner for that year. One will find a very wide variety of organizations represented in past winners. Regional category winners were quite diverse. I found links to a regional winner with a site selling used carp fishing tackle, one to a site providing assistance to the parents of children being bullied at school, one to the site of a company offering telecom network services, and one to the site of a company selling China online. The site of the national champion for 2002 was an online trading exchange for recyclable materials such as plastics, ferrous metals and batteries. Looking at the sites of the winners from year to year proved to be somewhat entertaining and quite interesting. It helps one better appreciate the diversity of organizations engaged in e-commerce and how such diverse organizations can find creative ways to use the Internet to help them achieve organizational goals. One thing I did not find was information that helped me to understand what it was that made the winners so special. I wanted to know what practices, specifically, made them winners. This would of course be valuable to other small businesses interesting in benchmarking e-commerce performance. I attempted the registration process but could not register (only pre-register which accomplished little), because the competition was not scheduled to start for nearly a month from the date of my visit. I thought I might ascertain from examining the registration page, what exactly were the performance criteria. I believe the E-Commerce Awards site could be made more useful by including specific criteria used in evaluation (assuming specific criteria are used) of the organizations involved in the competition. The Malcolm Balridge Awards and the Deming Awards utilize specific criteria. Performance criteria for the Baldridge Awards are downloadable from the Bladridge National Quality Program site. A Deming Prize checklist is likewise available on the Web. It would be quite helpful if the E-Commerce Awards performance criteria were listed on the site. The last thing on the site I wish to mention is the “Useful links” button (link). The “Useful links” page contained links to a wide variety of sites in the UK and elsewhere. There were search engine links (UK and worldwide), “Public sector information technology” and “Communications” links, links to sites with advice for purchasing online, and more. Most links were to help organizations find out more about the opportunities, problems and issues related to the use of information technology. Many of the links would be particularly valuable to small organizations exploring e-commerce as a means of solving business problems, or as a means of taking advantage of evolving opportunities in cyberspace. I thought the E-Commerce Awards site was worth the time I spent examining the site. Small businesses hoping to get involved in e-commerce would be well advised to look at the sites of some of the winners and see how creativity and technology can be brought together to foster organizational success. Some models of best practice might be found among past winners.

BENebUShttp://www.benebus.net/

BENeBUS stands for benchmarking of e-business. The BENeBUS project proposes to bring together academics, associations, and consultancies from Bularia, France, Georgia, Italy and Poland specializing in new technologies, for the purpose of benchmarking e-business in SMEs. SME is of course an acronym that stands for small to medium size enterprise. Founders of BENeBUS believe that SMEs face barriers that stifle their efforts to take full advantage of e-commerce and e-business opportunities. SMEs must overcome a host of technological, organizational, and cultural barriers to success. BENeBUS sees its mission as that of an enabler. BENeBUS hopes to bring about greater SME awareness of opportunities made possible by e-commerce and e-business, and to encourage SMEs to take advantage of those opportunities by helping them acquire the tools, methodologies, and information they need to succeed. The BENeBUS project works within the framework of the European Union IST Program in an attempt to facilitate “adaptability, employability and entrepreneurship” through e-business and dynamic partnerships to reach untapped markets and develop new ones. Simply put, BENeBUS hopes to encourage the creation of joint ventures within Western and Eastern Europe and thereby contribute to the development of new markets for SME goods and services and new jobs within SMEs. BENeBUS partners include the following:

• •

  ADEC – The Association for the Development of Businesses and Skills (France);

• •

  BIA – the Bulgarian Industrial Association;

• •

  CORTEAM Conseil – a consulting firm working in France and throughout Europe;

• •

  Eideia – originally a lard association but now promoting entrepreneurship in Italy and Europe;

• •

  LTD EWEN-Georgia – a private company initiated by academicians at the Georgian Technical University of Georgia to promote SMEs in post-Soviet Union Eastern Europe;

• •

  PECAT Foundation (Policy Education Centre on Assistance to Transition) of Poland; and

• •

  SINEURA SPA – an Italian consulting firm specializing in change management and organizational development.

As the above list demonstrates, BENeBUS members are a diverse group; however, they are united by their common goal of improving the performance of SMEs in their respective countries and beyond.

There are eight links on the BENeBUS home page. One must mouse over the circles with pictures contained therein to see the captions associated with each. I personally prefer links with visible names, but once you understand how the links work on BENeBUS, navigation is easy. The far left circle containing a picture of an oil well pump is a link accessing a page describing BENeBUS, its mission, and its partners. That page was the source of much of the information used in the above description of BENeBUS. On that page, as well as on others, the left navigation bar contains the same links (these have descriptive labels) found on the BENeBUS home page for ease of navigation – the user need not return to the homepage to effectively navigate the site. At the upper right corner of this page and others one will discover a number of useful links including the following: “Site map”, “Contact”, “Extranet”, “Legal information”, “Download” and “New”. The names well describe to content of pages accessed using these links. The link that visitors interested in benchmarking e-commerce might find most useful is the “Downloads” link. That link accesses a page with links that allow one to download various documents produced by the BENeBUS project under the headings of “Benchmarking e-business solutions”, “External environment analysis”, “Cultural environment”, and more. Articles appear to be well organized and well written. As one might guess, the articles are authored by BENeBUS partners. All articles are available in PDF format for easy downloading and viewing. The “New” link is also of some interest as it accesses a page with links pertaining to recent BENeBUS activities and developments, like tools BENeBUS developed to assist SMEs in Benchmarking e-commerce performance. The “Contact” link affords access to a page where one can contact BENeBUS to find out more about the organization, its projects, and activities. Returning to the BENeBUS main navigation bar, there are a number of useful links that warrant comment. The “Methodology” link moves one to a page where one can read about the methodology BENeBUS recommends for Benchmarking SME e-commerce performance. The framework, methodology, processes and outcomes are explained in a clear and concise manner. The “SME guidebook” link, also found on the main navigation bar, accesses a page with links to a step by step guide and e-commerce definitions. BENeBUS created these tools to help SME managers decide whether or not to integrate e-business processes within their companies. The step by step guide is entitled “SME guidebook”. The page housing the guidebook is organized with hyperlinks affording easy access to different parts of the guide. Guidebook links include the following: “Where are you”, “Lets go digital”, “Let’s go live”, “Let’s run on-line”, and “What’s next”. Hypertext makes examination of the guide quick and efficient. The “SME guidebook” contains some good information for SMEs pondering decisions about e-commerce. The “Definitions” link, with its easy-to-use drop down list, proved interesting and handy. The list did not contain a large number of definitions, but the ones contained thereon were useful. Back to the main navigation bar, the “External environmental analysis” link accesses a page with many useful links to assist in performing such an analysis. The page contains links to “Legal issues”, “Consultants”, “Training offers”, a “Legal expert network”, and more. The information accessible through this page should prove to be quite helpful to SMEs conducting, or planning to conduct, and external environmental analysis pertaining to e-commerce. There is much to do and much to know in conducting a proper analysis, and much help is available through the links on this page. The “Users group” link, another link on the main BENeBUS navigation bar, accesses a page with much information about the user groups, benefits of membership, user group activities, and more. Links on that page allow one to request information (this is where one can learn how to become a member of a user group), participate in online surveys, examine group composition (see “Panel descriptions” link) for each country represented (Italy, France, Georgia, Bulgaria and Poland), and explore reasons for joining a user group. The “Benchmarking approach” link on the main navigation bar takes one to a page describing in a very succinct manner the BENeBUS recommended approach to SME benchmarking of e-commerce performance. The document can best described as a benchmarking e-commerce primer because it contains some very basic definitions, as well as an overview of the recommended approach to benchmarking e-commerce performance. The “Cultural environment” link, another on the main navigation bar, accesses a page with links to descriptions of the cultural environment of Italy, France, Georgia, Bulgaria, and Poland. The last link on the main BENeBUS navigation bar worth noting is the “Links and bibliography” link. That link affords access to a page with links to many Web sites, organized by theme. Each theme title is a link to a page of links pertaining to that theme. Example themes include the following: business, e-business, indicators and statistics, information technologies, industrial organizations, France, Georgia, and international organizations. Many useful links are available via this page. The BENeBUS site has much to offer visitors, especially to those who might be managers or owners of SMES interested in becoming an successful player in the digital economy of BENeBUS member countries, or elsewhere. The needs of SMEs as they embrace e-commerce are in many ways different from those of large companies. The often limited resources of SMEs make it particularly important that they “get it right” the first time. They cannot afford to have many “false starts” in their e-commerce initiatives, so they can benefit from sound advice on how to get started. Furthermore, they must stay on course and make good progress. The benchmarking methodology offers many benefits in gauging success over time. This site demonstrates the commitment of BENeBUS members to helping SMEs get their e-commerce initiatives started and to keep them on the road to success through benchmarking. It is a good site with a noble mission.

The focus of BIJ is on “topics that have substantial management content, rather than being primarily technical in nature”. The content of this Internet editorial is consistent with that focus. E-commerce is here to stay. It is not a passing fad. It is fundamentally changing the way we do business as consumers and producers and altering the competitive landscape in dramatic ways. Benchmarking is a proven methodology for bringing about significant improvement in key areas of performance in all types of organizations, public and private. As a methodology to bring about positive improvements in performance, benchmarking is as applicable to e-business as it is to any other approach to doing business. In many companies e-business or e-commerce is in its infancy, so there is no better time than the present to start benchmarking performance. Some good resources are available on the Web to help organizations towards this end, but I was somewhat surprised that I did not find more sites devoted exclusively to benchmarking e-commerce. Perhaps we shall see more in the future. A point worth noting is that Europe appears to be leading the rest of the world in this area. I found more sites pertaining to benchmarking e-commerce in Europe than in the USA or elsewhere in the world. I expected to see more in the USA, because in most of my editorials, regardless of focus, I find and examine many US sites. Does that suggest a greater interest in e-commerce performance in Europe? That is a good question, and one that researchers might wish to examine in the future. In my searches for relevant sites for this editorial, I may have missed some good ones. If you are familiar with other valuable Web-based resources dedicated to benchmarking e-commerce (or e-business), you may wish to provide location details (URL, etc.) so that they can be included in future editorials. I will gladly revisit an area of focus from past editorials, if I can disclose additional resources of value. My goal is to write Internet editorials that will be valuable to BIJ readers. Any assistance you can provide to help me achieve that goal is appreciated. If you have a site or know of a site that you would like to see featured in future editorials, please e-mail me your suggestions. Send your comments and suggestions to Ronald McGaughey at ronmc@mail.uca.edu

Ronald E. McGaughey Internet Editor