Those who hesitate will be left behind when the economy picks up

Rosemary O'Mahony, Accenture

Many companies are finding that the hardest part of making these projects work is the changes they force on workers and established routines.

Losing battle

Dot.coms may have fallen out of favour and technology-heavy stockmarkets may be trading at almost half their value from a year ago, but for some of Europe's biggest firms this has not dented their faith in e-commerce.

An Accenture survey of European attitudes to e-commerce has found that 60% of those companies questioned will spend more on web-based ways of working over the next 12 months.

Rosemary O'Mahony, an Accenture expert on technology and co-author of the report, said this was driven by the realisation that e-commerce could help businesses weather the downturn.

"Those who hesitate will be left behind when the economy picks up," she said.

The report revealed that the champions of e-commerce are no longer just to be found with the technology departments of big companies.

She said that the report, now in its 4th year, showed how the attitudes of senior executives had changed to recognise the potential of e-commerce.

Attitude adjuster

What had also changed, she said, were the uses that companies were finding for e-commerce. Most companies had stopped expanding customer-facing websites and now were embarking on more far-reaching projects that re-shape basic business functions.

Some companies like Sainsbury's are turning to technology to keep a closer eye on stock as it moves from suppliers to warehouses and on to supermarkets.

Supermarket chain Sainsbury's is a fan of technology

"In the early days e-commerce was seen primarily as for marketing and sales," said Ms O'Mahony. "Now we are seeing it being much more used to drive operational functions and cut costs."

This realisation has meant that many companies are starting new projects even in the face of a looming recession.

"Companies are seeing the opportunity to move costs out of the system," said Ms O'Mahony.

"In the past e-commerce was done to keep up with competitors, now they are doing it to drive efficiencies and to prepare themselves for the future."

The companies who can get the most out of these web-based projects are the traditional enterprises who have established ways of working that can benefit from scrutiny and streamlining with e-commerce.

But, said Ms O'Mahony, the hardest part of these projects was not getting the technology working, but re-training staff and re-configuring departments to get the most out of change.

"The human aspect necessary to address some of the physical processes like logistics and delivery have been underestimated," said Ms O'Mahony, "proportionately speaking they often take more time and resources."