German firms feel they are able to improve their internal processes, compared to only 33.9% of 

the global sample. The lowest efficiency gains are reported in the banking/insurance industry, 

where only 22.8% see any improvements. While the efficiency of internal processes has 

increased, staff productivity did not increase in the same way. Only 18.6% of the German sample 

believes that e commerce has had a positive impact on staff productivity. Aside from operational 

process improvements, e commerce also has positive effects on the external, market oriented 

side. Twenty eight percent of German firms (compared to only 19.5% of the global sample), 

especially in the retail/wholesale sector (35.6%), were able to increase their international sales 

via the Internet. In contrast, procurement costs decreased less significantly than in the global 

sample. Only 1.3% of the manufacturing and banking/insurance industries were able to reduce 

their costs of procurement, in comparison to the retail/wholesale sector where 14.8% mentioned 

decreases. This is due to the still low prices on the competitive traditional market. The same 

holds true when asking about inventory costs. Most establishments have an efficient system in 

place, so the possibilities of additional optimization benefits are rather slim. Due to existing EDI 

systems, the coordination with suppliers, for instance, was already made possible and enabled in 

the pre e commerce era. Therefore, the impact of online services is not as important and far 

reaching for German firms. On the other hand, there is still a large unused potential for greater 

coordination within the retail/wholesale industry (only 9.0%), and for the integration of SMEs in 

general.

The impact of e commerce applications on SMEs and large establishments in Germany may also 

be calculated by using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) described in the methods section 

above. The DEA utilizes the 202 data points as decision making units (DMU) of the German 

sample. Afterwards, the results are divided into  efficient  (e.g., SME+ for SMEs and Large+ for 

large establishments) and  inefficient  (without +).

In Figure 12, the results of the DEA are provided for the manufacturing industry. Efficient SMEs 

(24.2% of all SMEs in this sector) use, on average, about 70% of available Internet possibilities 

and gain high benefits from them (Index about 3.2). Efficient large establishments (37.1% of all 

large establishments in this sector) use, on average, only 61.5% of all Internet applications and 

gain only 2.7 on the satisfaction index scale.

Relatively inefficient establishments use only 39.4% (SME) and 37.0% (large establishments) of 

available Internet solutions on average, but generate the same satisfaction with 1.9 each. If the 

satisfaction with e commerce correlates positively with the intensity of available Internet 

applications, then  inefficient  SMEs should be able to gain more, until now unrealized, benefits 

than large firms. On average, the DEA model identified 30.9% of establishments in the 

manufacturing sample as  efficient.  

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