Adoption of E-commerce in SMEs: Lessons from stage models

The paper presents the results of an exploratory case study of early adopters of electronic commerce. The data have been analyzed by applying PriceWaterhouseCoopers stage model of adoption of e-commerce. This model has been used because it takes into consideration many factors such as adoption benefits and barriers, uses, evolution of e-commerce capabilities, and the measures that should be taken to increase adoption and diffusion of e-commerce in SMEs. The paper concludes that this model, while having many strengths, presents also some limitations, the most important being not taking into consideration the changes in the company capabilities and business processes that have to take place in order to go from one level to the next of e-commerce capabilities.