The importance of e-business for German companies keeps growing. This is the main finding of the e-business barometers 2006/2007 study carried out by Fraunhofer IAO in co-operation with the Wegweiser GmbH, the Confederation of German Industry (BDI) and BITKOM. The investment climate in the field of e-business is as good as never before since surveys were carried out for the first time on this subject matter in the year 2003.
More than 6.000 companies of varying size and operating in several fields of industry and the service sector had been questioned at the beginning of 2006 on their e-business strategies. 70 percent of companies questioned think that e-business was already now of high or very high importance to their businesses. In the meantime many companies have come to consider e-business activities as an important tool in order to stay competent and successful. 78 percent of companies questioned understand e-business and the resulting optimization of business processes as a part of daily business. According to the study, in particular small companies want to engage in above-average investments in information and communications technology in the future.
In the sphere of e-business Germany is top in Europe, in particular with regard to e-commerce. Thus, in 2005 about 30 percent of all goods and services traded over the Internet were sold in Germany. In 2005 the overall turnover of the German online trade rose by 58 percent to 321 billion Euros as compared to the previous year.
The study is available free of charge from the Wegweiser GmbH. 