Implementing electronic commerce in SMEs - three case studies

In recent times electronic commerce has been accepted as a bona fide busine ss practice in the commercial world. However most research and news coverag e has focused upon the usage and practices of large firms. In 1996 the Elec tronic Commerce Innovation Centre, at Cardiff University, secured funding f rom the European Regional Development Fund and BT to manage a two-year proj ect aimed at researching electronic commerce implementations in small-to-me dium-sized enterprises. In late 1998 funding was received from BT to extend the project for a further two years. The aim of the project is twofold - firstly, to undertake the implementatio n process of widely available electronic commerce solutions, and, secondly, to monitor and research the usage patterns and the effect of these technol ogies not only on the smaller companies independently, but also on their cu stomers, suppliers and collaborators (i.e. the respective supply chains). R esulting from this research, the paper provides three case studies of the e lectronic trading activities of smaller firms based in South Wales.