The assumed role of government as a driver of e commerce by offering subsidies or using active 

e commerce technologies itself does not hold true for Germany. In fact, government and 

administration seems to be an impeding factor of electronic data transfer, such as in the area of 

call for proposals and quotations procedures. Although public administration and social systems 

play an important role for the GDP, the public sector is still far behind in e commerce diffusion 

compared to the other sectors studied in this survey. 

In summary, German firms adopted fast e commerce solutions after a certain time lag. Many of 

those firms implementing e commerce technologies in a consistent way have benefited through 

process improvements and increasing efficiencies. The e commerce diffusion race has reached a 

maturity and international competitive stage which seems to be an excellent base for subsequent 

developments such as mobile commerce in the near future.  

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