Fostering e-commerce among Australian SMEs

It is difficult to accurately assess the overall global market for SME-related e-commerce. However, we do know that Australia has more than 1 million SMEs; they are vitally important to Australia´s economic prosperity. Thus, in September 2001 the government announced a $6.5 million initiative to accelerate SMEs´ adoption of e-commerce to facilitate online access to government purchasing within two years. Helping these SMEs efficiently build their e-commerce systems has become a high priority of Australia´s government and IT/IS researchers. To find solutions to Australian SMEs´ e-commerce concerns, we conducted research using Citysearch, an online business directory, in early 2002. We selected 10 cities/areas to research: Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Tasmania, and Townsville, and studied industry sectors that include many SMEs.