In contrast to the former industries, the banking/insurance sector uses all possible Internet 

applications less often, on average (Figure 14). Relatively efficient SMEs (31.4% of all) use 

61.1% of Internet applications, on average, but are more likely to regard e commerce (with a 

satisfaction index of 3.0) as having a great deal of impact than efficient large establishments 

(only 24.1% of all). The latter use more Internet solutions (mean = 64.3%) but are, on average, 

less satisfied than SMEs (mean = 2.9).  

The same holds true when looking at relatively inefficient establishments. Large establishments 

use more Internet solutions, on average (mean = 49.1%), in comparison to SMEs (mean = 

41.7%) but are equally as satisfied as they are (mean index = 2.0).

FIGURE 14  Average Usage of Internet Technologies and Resulting E Commerce Satisfaction in 

the Banking/Insurance Industry 

3.5

SME+

3.0

x

Large+

nde In

tioc 2.5

fais

 Satec 2.0

SME

er

Large

mmocE  1.5

1.0

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

55%

60%

65%

70%

75%

80%

Internet Usage Indicator

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

While e commerce seems to have a great impact on SMEs in terms of both improving their 

internal processes and strengthening their role to play an active part in supply chains, large 

establishments do not benefit by using e commerce technologies in the same way, due to existing 

solutions such as EDI or internal process management systems dating back to the pre e 

commerce era. So the potential to improve their business is not as large as it is on the side of 

SMEs. Large establishments can, of course, use e commerce to widen their market like SMEs 

can, but again, the possible efficiency gains from improving internal processes or supply chains 

are lower for large establishments. In the manufacturing industry, for example, the concentration 

process and the disintermediation process started ten years ago. A prominent example is 

Volkswagen in the auto industry. VW CEO Lopez reduced the number of suppliers and lowered 

the costs for preliminary products over five months to $360 million in 1993. Other auto suppliers 

and large players in other industries tightened their supply chains as well during the following 

years. Due to these early developments, most industries, perhaps with the exception of the 

banking industry, have already developed lean supply chains which can hardly be created in a 

more efficient way, even through usage of the Internet and related technologies. 

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