促进澳大利亚中小企业中的电子商务（原文及翻译）

1、fostering e-commerce among australian smesjianming yong and yun yang【abstract】various journals, newspapers, and government and organization reports have published research papers and projects about e-commerce. some of this information addresses purely technical issues, some deals with policy issues,

2、 and some discusses enterprise strategies. large organizations have launched many successful applications and built complex information systems to conduct web-based business transactions. through advanced information systems, these large enterprises successfully implemented their e-commerce strategi

3、es and enhanced their revenue growth. because of these successful cases, e-commerce, especially in the late 1990s, activated the modern economy. new business models arose (j. gordijin and h.akkermans, designing and evaluating e-business models, ieee intelligent systems, july-aug. 2001, pp. 11-17), a

4、nd traditional marketswhether commercial, governmental, or transitioned to e-markets. during this transition, large organizations used resources (such as technology, personnel, and money) to conduct e-commerce procurement. but small and medium enterprises (smes) were and remain at a disadvantage. tr

5、aditionally, it was large organizations that implemented electronic data interchange (edi) because smes could not afford to maintain their own edi systems (david whiteley, e-commerce: strategy, technologies and applications, mcgraw-hill, 2000). with the help of internet technologies such as http (hy

6、pertext transport protocol) and xml (extensible markup language), these smes can develop a place in the e-commerce environment. 1. e-commerce in australian smesit is difficult to accurately assess the over all global market for sme- related ecommerce.however, we do know that australia has more than

7、1 million smes, they are vitally important to australias economic prosperity. thus, in september 2001 the government announced a $6.5 million initiative to accelerate smes adoption of e-commerce to facilitate online access to government purchasing within two years (e-commerce for small business,http

8、:/.au/publications/media_releases/archive/2001/sept2001/sme_ecom.htm). helping these smes efficiently build their ecommerce systems has become a high priority of australias government and it/is researchers. to find solutions to australian smes e-commerce concerns, we conducted research u

9、sing city search (.au), an online business directory, in early 2002.we selected 10 cities/ areas to researchadelaide, brisbane, cairns, canberra, gold coast, melbourne, perth, sydney, tasmania, and townsvilleand studied industry sectors that include many smes. the 14 sectors

10、we examined were building contractors, chemists- pharmaceuticals, auto parts recyclers, taxation consultants, motor mechanics and repairers, driving schools, florists-retail, restaurants, motels, news agents, liquor stores/retailers, furniture moving and storage companies, real estate agents, and do

11、ctors (medical or clinics). many people feel that smes in large metropolitan areas use e-commerce more than those in regional or remote areas. because metropolitan areas have a better telecommunications infrastructure. from figure 1, however, we find that type of profession has more importance in de

12、termining sme technology use than the size of the city. for example, only 1 percent of building contract or in sydney uses the web, while 6 percent of building contractors in townsville use the web. this would appear to indicate that small cities have better internet use than large cities. but 18 pe

13、rcent of real estate agents in sydney use the web, while 5 percent of real estate agents in townsville use the web. this tends to indicate that large cities have better internet use than small cities. so internet use does not necessarily depend on city size. as figure 2 shows, in these 14 sectors, o

14、nly real estate agents, orist-retail, furniture moving and storage, and motels can reach an average of 10 percent or higher in internet use. these results show that australian smes are not actively participating in e-commerce. to prove our city search based results, we used a similar method to analy

15、ze the australian yellow pages (http:/www. yellow pages. com. au). this analysis showed results similar to those we obtained from city search. 1.1 concerns about the smes to find out why so many smes do not appear to participate in e-commerce, we conducted a small telephone survey. in this survey, w

16、e randomly chose 100smeseach employing more than five employees but less than 199 employeesfrom each sector. these smes were from among those studied using city search. we asked two questions: “does your company have computing capacities and facilities for accessing the internet?” and “what concerns

17、 you most about e-commerce?”every company surveyed responded “yes” to the first question. this result does not surprise us because approximately 67 percent of households in australia either own or lease a pc, and 52 percent of australian households have an internet connection, according to an april

18、2002 study by the australian national office for the information economy (“the current state of play: australias scorecard,” natl office for the information economy,(.au/projects/framework/progress/ie_stats/csop_april2002/csop_april2002.pdf). this study shows that australias i

19、nformation infrastructure can definitely support these smes in using online e-commerce.the answers to the second question were quite different. we gave survey respondents a choice of five answers to this question: the benefit, security, the bandwidth of infrastructure, employee knowledge, and other.

20、 forty-five percent of respondents were concerned about the benefit; 26 percent, security; 15 percent, infrastructure; and 12 percent, employee knowledge. just 2 percent of respondents had other concerns.so according to our survey, smes are primarily concerned because they do not see themselves bene

21、fiting from the implementation of online applications. even worse, several thought that launching online applications would increase expenditures, an especially prevalent concern because some smes lost money in the dotcom crash. as a result, many smes lost interest in having web sites that conduct b

22、usiness transactions. instead of facilitating online transactions, more smes are interested in using web pages to simply provide information for customers and business partners. regarding security, several smes we talked to worried about security vulnerabilities such as theft of sensitive data, sabo

23、tage of online viruses and malwares, denial of service, etc, in having their business online. to avoid these vulnerabilities, they choose to either delay or drop the development of online systems. smes concerned with bandwidth mentioned the telecommunications infrastructure: they were unsure of whet

24、her their computers could run online transactions through traditional telephone lines. the fourth concern involves whether the smes existing employees had the knowledge to conduct online business. these smes did not want to spend much money training employees to acquire the necessary skills.among ou

25、r selected 100 smes, two expressed no interest at all in online business and did not regard it as part of their future plan.1.2 challenging smes concernsindeed, these smes are at a disadvantage in competing with larger companies, especially in absorbing new technologies to improve business. but they

26、 can still find a place in the e-commerce environment.2. take measures to promote smes e-commerce2.1 increasing e-commerce benefitsto increase e-commerce benefits for smes, governmentsfederal, state, and localshould implement an overall framework and strategic plan for online business infrastructure

27、. they should also sponsor various independent agents to help smes develop and host their own websites. for example, governments can subsidize agents such as city search and yellow page listings. through these agents, smes can obtain inexpensive or even free web sites. this idea is similar to that e

28、mployed in developing the internet, which depended on funding from the us department of defense and the us national science foundation, before it became fully commercialized. after most smes become effective online players, governments can gradually withdraw subsidies. at that time, the ongoing cost

29、 of online transactions will drop significantly because of the many participants. nonparticipating smes will become isolated from other e-commerce players and perhaps become more willing to invest in e-commerce as a result.in addition, smes must overcome the psychological barriers generated by the d

30、ot-com crashes. they must come to realize that many significant inventions have taken significant time to progress from birth to widespread use. for example, electricity and the telephone were invented hundreds of years ago, but only in recent decades have experienced worldwide use. although the int

31、ernet started as arpanet in 1969, it only became widely used in the mid-1990s.2.2 establishing a security mechanismplacing a high priority on e-commerce security legislation is another way for government to foster e-commerce. helpful legislation could reassure smes that conducting business online is

32、 as safe as doing it the traditional way. governments should also help establish organizations to take charge of these security issues. for example, organizations (perhaps government-appointed agents) should manage cytological keys. they should also give organizations such as the australian post off

33、ice the authority to publish keys and authenticate the real identity of those using its key to conduct business transactions. users already conduct many web-based transactions. all the security breaches related to online transactions are no worse than for traditional e-commerce, such as that driven

34、by edi or performed using electronic funds transfer from a point of sale.various security technologies ensure secure transactions through the internet. most of these security technologies already use 128-bits or larger encryption keys. at this level of encryption, it is extremely difficult to crack

35、encrypted information. if the government would publicize this information, it would perhaps allay the security concerns of smes.2.3 managing the telecommunications infrastructuretelecommunications facilities are the most important parts of e-commerce. hence, the evolution of telecommunications can d

36、rive changes in e-commerce. with any rapid progress in telecommunications, e-commerce upgrades into new phases. in the initial stage of e-commerce, enterprises used limited telecommunication capacity to conduct business. telephone voice transmission was adequate to monitor business activities; faxin

37、g became a way to order goods, accelerating certain business transactions. although several standards arose to facilitate e-commerce, none were completely satisfactory. for example, edi is historically an important application in e-commerce (/protocols/), but most smes could not affo

38、rd its cost and technical complexity. the real e-commerce revolution came from data communications, especially via the internet. since the early 1990s, the internet has led to commercialization. year by year, commercial traffic over the internet grows exponentially. although the current networking m

39、arket faces sluggish or even declining growth, the internet has definitely become a vital infrastructurefor the future economy. how do enterprises interact with the telecommunications infrastructure to build e-commerce systems? physically any e-commerce system consists of two partsinternal and acces

40、s networksthat must work with the internet.2.3.1 internal networkan internal network typically includes pcs, servers, and a lan (local area network). sometimes an internal network consists of just one or a few computers. for a large company, an internal network is more complex, including thousands o

41、f computers and many lans and backbone networks. an internal networks function is typically core to all business activity and responsible for company-internal information flow and resource management. in e-commerce, however, an internal network becomes a product provider when a web server, for examp

42、le, publishes a product catalog and service information. with the help of an access network (described next), outside customers can reach these products, as permitted by the internal networks own security policy.2.3.2 access network an access network is a bridge between an internal network and the i

43、nternet, normally supplying connection services. it negotiates with an internal network to decide how an enterprise connects to the internet and what resources outside users can view. some large companies operate their own access network. however, most smes do not directly operate their access netwo

44、rks. instead, they typically buy services from internet service providers or other agents that operate access networks. thus, access networks become the internet gateways for many smes.2.4 improving employees skillsthe success of e-commerce does depend on employees having adequate computer skills, s

45、omething sme employees sometimes lack. to alleviate this problem, smes might employ intelligent terminals rather than pcs. such devices offer simple interfaces that work with plug and play applications; they work well for employees who are not computer savvy.governments can also sponsor public infor

46、mationvia tv and newspapers that introduces people to general knowledge about web based technologies and usage. its also possible for host stations, which are responsible for supplying online free training materials or courses on behalf of governments or communities, to train sme employees. governme

47、nts can also encourage this practice through subsidies. if smes and public agencies take such actions, the computer skills of sme employees do not need to hinder progress toward e-commerce.3. conclusionalthough australian smes are not very active in ecommerce, they have a promising future in this ar

48、ea and could become excellent players in the economy.译文：促进澳大利亚中小企业中的电子商务勇建民，杨云引言 各种各样的学报、报纸以及政府和组织报告，出版了关于电子商务的研究论文和项目。这些信息中一些只论及技术问题,一些应付政策问题,还有一些谈论企业战略。大企业为了开展基于互联网的经济业务，进行许多成功的应用和建立了复杂信息系统。通过先进的信息系统,这些大企业成功地实施了他们的电子商务战略和提高了他们的收益。由于这些成功的案件,电子商务,特别是在90 年代晚期,激活了现代经济。新商业模式出现了,传统市场（无论商务, 政府,或教育）都转向对电子

49、市场。在这转折期间,大企业使用资源购买使用了电子商务。但是中小企业仍然未使用。传统上,只有大企业实施电子数据交换，是因为中小企业不能维护他们自己的电子数据交换系统。在互联网技术帮助下，譬如http 和xml,这些中小企业可能开发一个电子商务环境的空间。一、 澳大利亚中小企业中的电子商务 要准确地估计中小企业运用电子商务进入全球性市场很困难。但是,我们知道, 澳洲有超过1 百万个中小企业，他们对澳洲的经济繁荣起着非常重要的作用。因此,在2001年9月，澳大利亚政府宣布在二年之内，投入650万美元主动加速中小企业的电子商务的发展，促进对政府的在线采购。 帮助这些中小企业高效率地建立他们的电子商务系

50、统，成为了澳洲的政府和他们研究员的首要任务。为了解答对澳大利亚中小企业的电子商务关心,我们在2002 年的早期，使用城市搜索开展了研究网上企业行名录。我们选择了10 个城市或区域的研究和被学习的工业部门，包括许多中小企业。我们审查的14 个区段是：建筑承包商,化学家配药,汽车零件再循环器,征税顾问,马达机械工和修理匠,征税顾问,马达机械工和修理匠,驾驶学校,卖花人零售,餐馆,汽车旅馆经营人 ,酒店零售,家具行动和储藏公司,房地产开发商,医生。 许多人认为, 在大市区的中小企业比那些在地方或偏远地区的中小企业更要使用电子商务，因为市区有一套更好的电信设施。但是,我们发现行业类型比城市的大小在确定

51、中小企业技术上有更重要用途。例如,只有1%的建筑承包商 在悉尼使用网络,而6%的建筑承包商在汤斯维尔使用网络，这样看来, 小城市比大城市有更好的互联网用途。但18%的房地产开发商在悉尼使用网络,而5%的房地产开发商在汤斯维尔使用网络，这倾向表明, 大城市比小城市有更好的互联网用途。因此，互联网用途不一定取决于城市大小。 在14个区段中，只有房地产开发商,卖花人零售,家具行动和存贮,汽车旅馆在互联网用途上能到达平均10%或更高。这些结果显示, 澳大利亚中小企业对于参加电子商务不活跃。证明了我们基于城市查找的结果,我们曾经用一个相似的方法分析了澳大利亚黄页。这分析显示结果与那些我们从城市查找获得结

52、果相似。（一）对中小型企业的关心 为了了解为什么许多中小型企业看上去不参加电子商务,我们进行了一份小电话调查。在这次勘测中,我们任意地从各个区段选择了中小企业。这些中小企业是那些被学习使用城市查找之中的。我们问二个问题:您的公司有为访问互联网的计算容量和设施吗?并且您最关心电子商务什么? 对于第一个问题，每个公司反应是。根据2002 年4月，由澳大利亚全国办公室为信息经济的研究，这个结果不使我们惊奇，因为大约家庭的67 %在澳洲或拥有或出租个人计算机,并且澳洲家庭的52% 有互联网连接。这项研究表示, 澳洲的信息基础设施可能确定地支持这些中小型企业在使用网上电子商务。 对第二个问题的答复是相当

53、不同的。 我们给了勘测应答者五个答复选择这个问题:好处,安全,基础设施带宽,雇员知识,还有其他。应答者的45%关注好处; 26%, 安全; 15%, 基础设施; 12%, 雇员知识。应答者的2 %有其它关心。 如此根据我们的勘测, 中小型企业主要因为他们没看见自己受益于网上申请的执行。更坏的是有些想法认为,线上申请会增加开支, 特别关心因为一些中小型企业丢失了钱在上面而崩溃。结果, 许多中小型企业在有举办经济业务的网站上丢失了兴趣。而不是促进网上交易,更多中小型企业是对使用网页为顾客和商务伙伴简单地提供信息感兴趣。 关于安全, 我们与几个中小型企业在安全上的弱点，譬如敏感数据偷窃的担心谈话,

54、网上病毒破坏活动, 取消服务等等, 在网上那些事务。 避免这些弱点, 他们选择或延迟或下降在线系统的发展。 中小型企业与有关带宽提及了电信设施: 他们缺乏信心的是，他们的计算机能否通过传统电话线跑网上交易。 第四，关心是否中小型企业的现有的雇员有知识做网上生意。这些中小型企业没有想花费金钱训练雇员获取必要的技能。在我们选择的100个中小型企业之中,既没有表达兴趣在网上事务,也没有看待它作为他们的未来规划一部分。（二）中小型企业富有挑战性关的确, 这些中小型企业在与更大的公司竞争是不利, 特别是在吸收新技术改进事务。但他们仍然能发现在电子商务环境里的地方。二、采取相应措施促进中小企业中的电子商务的发展（一）增加的电子商务好处 为了增加电子商务好处，中小型企业, 政府应该实