EC Adoption and Critical Success Factors of EC in SMEs in Iran

Abstract: Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is changing the way organizations carry
out their responsibilities, cooperate with customers and running their
business usually. E-commerce in practice is not only the buying and selling
of products via electronic means, it involves all other activities to
support the sale process.

To take advantage of e-commerce, during the late 1990s many companies
expanded their business activities to reach new customers and/or to offer
new opportunities to their existing customers. During the same time there
has been significant growth of new established companies implementing e-
commerce technologies, commonly known as dot-com companies (Lovelock,
2001).However, investigates show that there have been significant
breakdowns along with these companies and it is now time to look back and
learn from the mistakes of the past. Besides many researches have indicated
that significant benefits are achieved by those SMEs that adopt and use
Ecommerce in their organizations

This survey attempts to explore the importance of an adoption approach for
e-commerce technology in Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Iran.
This research hypothesized ten factors as influencing e-commerce adoption
significantly in SMEs: eAdvantage, eCost, eTransformation, Size, eProduct,
eSupport, ePressure, eCompetiotion, eNnovativeness and eNvolvement.
Besides, the research attempts to identify other factor/s rather than these
ten factors which are influencing the e-commerce adoption from SMEs point
of views. Further, the approach differentiates between adopters and non
adopters in terms of the adopted EC as: Non-adopters, Starters and
Adopters. The research results point to: (1) Non-adopters: the movement
towards Internet and email was dependent on the cost and financial
resources for initial investments: (2) Starters: the first stage of EC
adoption was dependent on technological support provided by vendors and
innovativeness of the manager: (3) Adopters: the adoption of more EC was
dependent on e-support, ennovativeness, e-pressure, e-cost and e-advantage.
Public awareness and Public purchasing behavior were other significant
factors identified by Starters and Adopters.

This research also attempts to develop an approach for electronic commerce
success. Key factors influencing e-commerce success were identified from
literature review and categorized as Internal Drivers/ Obstacles and
External Drivers/ Obstacles. In this respect, two studied models by other
researchers are examined and the contribution of each factor is re-studied
to fit to market of Iran. However, in area of e-commerce adoption Cultural
Factors: Public Purchasing Behavior and Public Awareness are recognized as
unique factors affecting e-commerce adoption among SMEs in Iran. This
survey also found out poor EC Adopted Banking System as an external
obstacle in e-commerce success process in Iran.