e-Business Projects

Since January 2002, empirica co-ordinates the "e-Business W@tch" initiative of the European Commission, Enterprise & Industry Direcatorate General. e-Business W@tch has studied the adoption and impact of ICT and e-business in more than 20 sectors of the European economy. The analysis is based on annual representative surveys among with decision makers in about 10,000 enterprises from all EU countries and beyond, on case studies and expert interviews. Special emphasis is placed on the implications for SMEs. The initiative was launched by the European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry, in late 2001. It will be operational until October 2009 with extension until 2010 pending.

This study aims to identify policy initiatives supporting e-business activities of small and medium enterprises at a sectoral level in the member states of the European Union and selected other countries (incl. the US, Australia, Japan and China). In doing so, the study will support the work of the eBSN (e-Business Support Network for SMEs), a network of 175 representatives of public policies or private-public partnerships in support of the promotion of e-business practices to SMEs. In 2005, the eBSN decided to focus policy exchanges and actions on four e-business related policy priorities, one of which has been sector specific policy approaches.

Learning from each other: The e-Business Support Network (e-BSN) of the European Commission is a portal and network for policy makers in the field of electronic business. Representatives of all EU Member States participate in the e-BSN to exchange their experiences, to identify successful examples of implementing e-business policies, and to make these examples available to other European regions.
In order to support these objectives, the European Commission has issued a detailed impact study on 10 e-business policies. The polices were selected by the e-BSN.
The study is being carried out by Databank Consulting (Milan) in cooperation with empirica GmbH und IDATE (Montpellier).