establishments in the banking/insurance industry is the highest, followed by the retail and 

manufacturing industry, SMEs invest an average of 4.4%, nearly the same as large firms (5.4%) 

across all industry sectors. Weighted by the number of SMEs, the generated absolute amount of 

IT investments is significantly higher than the IT investments of large establishments. This 

resembles a relatively higher burden for SMEs than for large firms, which may profit from their 

sheer size and economies of scale. Nevertheless, the average percentage of IT investments is 

5.4% with large firms and only 4.4% with SMEs. The total mean of 4.4% is equivalent to the 

average percentage of SMEs, due to the large number of SMEs.  

TABLE 9  IT Operating Budget as a Percent of Establishments Revenue in 2001 

 Establishm

Total

a

ent 

Size 

Industry 

SME Large 

Manufacturing Retail/  Banking/ 

Wholesale

Insurance 

<10% 

66.7 67.3 44.1 

62.0 

67.6 

74.4 

10 20% 

16.2 16.3 10.2 

13.2 

16.8 

20.6 

20 50% 

0.1 0.0 2.6 

0.0 

0.1 

0.0 

Don't know or refused 

17.0 

16.4 

43.1 

24.8 

15.5 

5.0 

Percent of establishment's total 

IT 

(mean) 

4.4 4.4 5.4 

3.9 

4.3 

6.4 

Notes:  

a

Results are weighted by the total number of establishments in an industry by size of firm. 

Source:  CRITO Global E Commerce Survey, 2002 

Aside from the relative amount of IT investments by revenue (Table 9), Table 10 provides 

information about the IT budget per employee. The heterogeneous responses allow no 

significant, error free proposition due to high volatility. However, the quantitative differences 

among the three industries are recognizable. Again, the highest IT investments are observable in 

the banking/insurance industry, followed by the retail/wholesale industry and the manufacturing 

industry. Surprisingly, SMEs have a higher IT budget per capita than large establishments in the 

banking/insurance sector. The large difference can be explained due to the bias of the 

unrepresentative data subset, which is not broad enough to calculate an average IT budget with a 

maintainable variance. Nevertheless, the results may provide a qualitative view on the situation 

of SMEs in this sector. Small banks and especially insurance firms have to invest more, while 

large ones have made their IT investments already. 

TABLE 10  IT Operating Budget Per Establishment's Employee in Dollars 

 Manufacturing Retail/ 

Banking/ 

Wholesale

Insurance 

 SME 

Large 

SME 

Large 

SME 

Large 

IT Budget (mean) 

$472,039  $13,757,086  $6,871,840 

$127,246,705 

$13,725,253  $19,431,766 

Employees (mean)  

85 

1383 

123 

1772 

113 

943 

Budget per Employee  

$5,553 $9,947 $55,869 $71,810 $121,462 $20,606 

   (mean)  

Source: CRITO Global E Commerce Survey, 2002, unweighted sample. 

15