Synopsis: Ict:

fax:++43-2254 -780-3888 E-mail address: alexander. kaufmann@arcs. ac. at (A. Kaufmann 0166-4972/02/$-see front matter ï 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Data from a research project †SME Policy and the Regional Dimension of Innovation (SMEPOL, see

-tria has an industrial core region formed by the three cities of Linz (the capital of the province), Wels, and

Outside this core area there are peripheral areas in the north and south of Upper Austria but also several

results of the data analysis, however, it is necessary to describe some technical details of the survey:

data presented in Table 2 correspond to the results of other studies (e g.,, Fritsch and Lukas, 1997;

analysis of data from a survey on innovation systems in several European regions (Kaufmann and Toâ dtling

available technical information technologies, and accessible markets. In Upper Austria the region-centred view is pronounced particularly in the case of traditional

are research-oriented †Software Park Hagenberg SWP) and Research and Training Centre for Labour and

-oriented is the Software Park Hagenberg (SWP), located close to the capital of Linz. It is a technology and

research centre for software development, industrial mathematics, and related services, exclusively focusing on this technology field.

The SWP was founded in 1987 initiated by a department of the University of Linz Research Institute for Symbolic Computation.

It soon expanded, attracting firms to this location. Today the centre comprises three types of institutions †university

Software engineering), and industrial development pro -jects by the firms. The 27 companies in the park are

firms, mainly active in automation and telematics Mainly due to the scarce space at the location it is

software, data processing, and consulting services. There are hardly any manufacturing companies and only a few high-tech firms.

-2 All data regarding innovation support are based on the annual reports of the FFF (Forschungsfoâ rderungsfonds fuâ r die gewerbliche

microelectronics and information technologies (21%of total funds and 16%of supported projects), pharmaceut -ical technologies (9%of funds and 2%of projects), and

-cation technologies, data processing, medical, measure -ment and optical technologies, and chemicals. These are industries with a significant or even predominant share

According to the survey data the spillover effects to SMES in the region are negligible. In

machinery, and services (frequently software) while only 19 belong to the metal-and-steel industry, metal pro

communication technologies, chemicals, data pro -cessing, and electrical equipment. Of course, there is no simple correspondence between industry and technologi

-tures in corporate and regional Development environment & Plan -ning D: Society and Space 11, 543†564

Fax:( (0271) 740-2279 Internet: www. prokmu. de  PRO KMU Alle Rechte vorbehalten ISSN:

1863-6632 III Table of contents 1. Introduction...1 2. Conceptual Framework for Identifying Good Practices on RTD and Regional

Internet links for further information on †good practice†regions...77 List of Figures Figure 1:

Some key data on Bremen concerning innovation...43 Table 3: Some key data on Tuttlingen concerning innovation...

59 Table 4: Stylized Matrix of Good Practice Elements in Surveyed Regions...62 1 1. Introduction1

-ties which is reflected in statistical data showing a lower number of patents or lower expenses for R&d personnel,

Based on US data, Acs and Audretsch (1990) provided further empirical support for the disproportionate contribution of SMES to innovation.

definitions of what constitutes innovation as well as different databases to examine it the point to stress is that both large and small firms play important roles in innovation

software industry frequently carry out product innovations, often together with customers And finally, science-based producers (e g.,

contain the introduction of new software products and services or the development of new customer segments.

regional clustering, analysing in some detail how initial conditions within a region are reinforced, what triggered cluster processes and how innovative clusters of firms

thus introducing an interaction-based clustering proc -ess (Wolter 2004) 9. Initially, high-tech industries and clusters need triggers to set them

-9 Wolter (2004) distinguishes two dominant explanations for clustering tendencies, namely resource-based ones, emphasizing the access to resources,

-tion concern Nokia or the German automobile company VW in Wolfsburg. Finally, pol -icy-led networks are to be observed in Silicon Glen in Scotland,

-parate segments of the social network that are otherwise unconnected†(Elfring and Hulsink 2003: 411 On the other hand, strong ties tend to bind individuals with similar or complementary

demonstrating the extent to which this results in cumulative processes in core regions at the expense of peripheries.

Data from this study clearly shows that the pattern of patenting is concentrated much more than the distribution of the industry in general

upgrade firm capabilities often becomes vital to its continued success. Advantages that are developed through the interaction of individuals, firms,

-ogy, information technology and others. Here, research activities are more impor -tant compared to development. In such a context, regional policy-makers are well

The authors use the software ag -glomeration in Dublin and the IT-sector in Tampere as examples to demonstrate how the

which could originate out of territorial catalysts fostering a local innovation system such as technological parks.

and spatial clustering allows firms to realise and draw on knowledge spillovers. With this classification, we aim at capturing the

-nautics, National Aerospace Laboratories, Bharat Electronics, Indian Telephone Indus -try, Hindustan Machine tools), space technology (Indian Space Research Organisa

-tion) and IT (esp. international computer hardware and software enterprises that have operations in Bangalore. The enterprise structure consists of many branches of MNCS

Texas instruments, Infosys Technologies Ltd..In total, Bangalore is the most im -portant centre of civil and military aircraft and aerospace industry and IT in India.

mobile with high qualifications. Many local universities and research centres foster knowledge spillovers into industry and close research-industry cooperation

In a historical context, the US major enterprise Texas instruments that †discovered†Bangalore as a location is of great importance.

-lore†s software cluster owes †its origins and growth to increased cross-border flows of

the Indian software industry in the future. †This refers to the often heard criticism that Bangalore†s success is only a result of the foreign investment because of low cost ad

, data net -works) that supported the settlement of foreign enterprises. In Bangalore subsidies were given on an enterprise level (e g.,

the minicomputer industry and a reduction in military budgets, both on which the local industries were highly dependent.

†By 2000, Boston was a center for information technology, financial services, and biotechnology, and ranked as the eighth richest metropolitan area in the US€ (Porter et

social networks) that †offer particular (â€) advantages for firms engaged in innovation and knowledge creation. †These kind of open networks are very contrary to the earlier

worldwide (increasing importance of sectors like biotechnology, internet services etc dislocation of emphasis from hardware to services) was a benefit for Boston that †was

ideally poised to take advantage of the rise in returns to skill that so marked the last

biotechnology and internet services Summing up, Boston is seen especially as a †good practice†because â€...

Talking of key data, on the one hand the in -habitants†income situation in Bremen is relatively good, for instance.

the existence of innovation abilities (see also Table 2 for more data referring to Bre -men†s success). But on the other hand the unemployment rate ranks clearly above the

Some key data on Bremen concerning innovation First, there are the general conditions and resources to look at.

-novation fields like T. I. M. E. telecommunications, information technology, multimedia and entertainment), health care services and environmental economics etc.

The settlement of an IBM plant in 1965 can be seen as a major initial impetus for a new phase of economic development as part of a †third industrial

-cations and audiovisual techniques and †Informatique†for microelectronics, data proc -essing, etc. A fifth pã'le is †Hà liopolisâ€

of the city evoked heavy traffic, a lot of construction sites, high prices for real estate and high cost of living in general

-less systems, modem and fax equipment for wire and wireless systems as well as vari -ous equipments for maritime communications and navigation (Dalum et al. 1999;

-sic research is seen as a core asset of the region (Stoerring and Dalum 2006. The

that the region build on its core assets, namely ICT (Norcom) and the emerging life sciences at university for Biomedico

and maintaining social networks have a long tradition in the region (Stoerring and Christensen 2004. Moreover, a widespread awareness of the importance of further

of printing and publishing companies in the UK outside London (Oxfordshire County Council 2005 Figure 7:

But for †the greater ease of retrieving data, (â€) we will make the Prato industrial

, information technology (Lazzeretti and Storai 2001 As in every industrial district, the enterprise structure in Prato is characterised by an

Some key data on Tuttlingen concerning innovation What is responsible for this success? Firstly, there are some general conditions resp

-tence of lead users in an established industry, which played a particular important role in

Tuttlingen, or the settlement of major multinational enterprises such as IBM in Montpellier †Big pharma†in North Jutland and Texas instruments in Bangalore.

Soft factors such as regional image and identity and the †openness†of a region are both important inputs as

-sult of clustering tendencies 5. 3. Unsolved Questions in Regional RTD All this poses additional challenges to be taken into account by policy-makers.

The most prominent examples are the †QWERTY€ keyboard and the VHS video systems (cf.

The software cluster in Bangalore. In: J. H Dunning (ed.:Regions, globalization, and the knowledge-based economy.

Innovation in Small Scottish Software Firms. In: Entrepreneurship & Regional Devel -opment 12 (3), 217†244

Download 15 june 2006 Hospers, G.-J. 2004: Place Marketing in Europe: The Branding of the Oresund Region.

Social networks, Resources and Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship and Innovation 103-109 Johannisson, B.,M. Ramirez-Pasillas and G. Karlsson (2002:

Download 6 june 2006 Keeble, D c. Lawson, H. Lawton Smith, B. Moore, F. Wilkinson (1998: Collective learning processes and

Territorial Clustering and High-technology Innovation: From Industrial Districts to In -novative Milieux. ESRC Centre for Business Research working paper 54, University of Cambridge

-based theory of spatial clustering. Environment and Planning A 34,429-449 Malmberg, A.,Ã. SÃ lvell and I. Zander (1996:

Spatial Clustering, Local Accumulation of Knowledge and Firm Competitiveness. Geografiska Annaler, 78 B (2), 85-97

Bridging the digital divide. New delhi, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, pp. 169-181 Schamp, E w. and V. Lo (2003:

Download 6 june 2006 Stam, E. and E. Wever (1999: Propinquity Without Community †Spatial Transfer of Knowledge in the

Innovations Database revisited. Research Policy 2, 19-32 Toedtling, F.;Trippl, M. and J. v. Gabain (2006:

Knowledge-based industrial clustering: International comparisons. In: J. de la Mothe and G. Paquet (eds.:

High-tech industry clustering rationales: the case of German biotechnology. In P. Cooke and A. Piccaluga (eds.:

Internet links for further information on †good practice†regions selection Bangalore-India www. onlinebangalore. com

All results are available on the internet and can be accessed or ordered via the Europa server or directly at the Sebw website

www. europa. eu. int/comm/enterprise/ict/policy/watch/index. htm, www. ebusiness-watch. org

3. 3. 3 Use of Open source Software...53 3. 3. 4 Deployment and implications of RFID technology...

58 3. 4 Internal Process Integration...60 3. 4. 1 Use of software systems for internal process integration...

60 3. 4. 2 Use of ICT for cooperative and collaborative business processes...64 3. 4. 3 Deployment of e-invoicing...

3. 8 Cluster analysis: Employees with internet access at their workplace...86 3. 9 Summary and conclusions of ICT and e-business deployment...

outlook and policy implications...185 6. 1 Key findings...185 6. 2 Possible further developments of e-business...

information about data sources. For data analysis, descriptive and analytical statistical methods were used, including advanced

statistical methods such as growth accounting The sector at stake The transport and logistics industry, as defined

advances in ICT in the field of telematics. This covers systems for traffic and transport

internet and e-business (see Chapter 3 Basic ICT infrastructure Nearly all companies which use computers in

the TLS sector said in 2007 that they were con -E-business in the transport & logistics industry

nected to the internet (97%.%There is a clear trend towards broadband connections: except for micro-firms, more than 40%of all companies

The digitisation of business processes The continuous improvement of the basic ICT infrastructure in the TLS sector has allowed

software systems ERP (Enterprise resource planning) systems are one of the main platforms to enable this goal. If a customer or supplier has an ERP

system, data related to orders (received or placed) is exchanged typically in a paper-less way between the ERP systems of the two

Use of specific software systems for transport & logistics management Specific software solutions for the TLS sector

such as Cargo Handling Technology, Fleet Control system and ITMS (Intermodal Trans -portation Management Systems) are also

logistics software systems 16 3 12 20 31 29 8 22 35 43 12 4 6

large firms in the sector use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI. Only 7%of micro companies

not only users of e-business themselves, but, in a way, provider of e-services. In all cases, e

-ment) systems, a comprehensive software to capture, storage and analysis customer data in an integrated way, is used not yet widely in the

TLS sector (see Section 3. 6. 3 %Companies*accepting orders online /using a CRM system

-ment Systems (ITMS) or RFID technology is more widely used in the US. On the other hand in some other areas, European companies

their data exchanges with business partners are conducted electronically, however, suggests that enterprises in Europe and in the US have

Intranet 29 24 ITMS (Intermodal Transportation Management System) 8 4 RFID (Radio frequency Identification Device) 7 2

Data Exchange mostly electronically 13 13 WMS (Warehouse Management System) 6 15 ITS (Intelligent Transport

System) 1 7 MMS (Maintenance Management Systems) 11 15 SMC (Supply Chain Management) 4 6

used data from the EU KLEMS Productivity and Growth Accounts2 (macro-data) as well as from the E-business Survey 2007 (micro-data

Regarding the relationships between ICT capital investment and productivity growth (see Section 4. 1), the results indicate that an

instantaneous impact of ICT capital investment on total factor productivity growth does not take place in this sector.

Regressions based on the micro-data from the E-business Survey 2007 aimed to explore links between ICT usage, companies'innovation

à Advanced ICT users are more likely to have outsourced business activities à The intensity of ICT usage and the level of

The empirical study findings (micro-data and case study analysis, macroeconomic analysis lead to the conclusion that the following issues

company case studies and a telephone survey among decision-makers in European enterprises from the TLS industries.

This chapter is mainly based on survey data from the Sectoral E-business Watch Chapter 4 assesses the impact of the developments described in Chapter 3 on work

descriptive presentation of quantitative survey data (Chapter 3) and an economic analysis of ICT adoption and its impacts (Chapter 4). This threefold approach is meant to

http://europa. eu. int/growthandjobs/pdf/COM2005 024 EN. pdf 7"Implementing the Community Lisbon Programme: A Policy Framework to Strengthen EU

the programme's website at www. ebusiness-watch. org. In 2007/08, the focus is on the

7 RFID adoption and implications (several sectors --8 Intellectual property rights for ICT-producing SMES 30.01+02,32. 1-3, 33.2+3

notably by enabling electronic data exchanges between a company and its customers suppliers, service providers and business partners.

systems, devices and services used for data processing (the information side of ICT) as well as telecommunications equipment and services for data transmission and

communication (the communication side. The European Information technology Observatory (2007) structures the ICT market into four segments with an estimated total

market value of about â 670 billion in 2007 (Exhibit 1. 2-1 Exhibit 1. 2-1:

equipment (such as mobile phones), office equipment such as copiers) and data communications and network equipment (such as switching and routing

Software products System and application software â 76 billion IT services Consulting, implementation and operations

management â 140 billion Carrier services Fixed voice telephone and data services, mobile telephone services, cable TV

â 293 billion Source: EITO 2007 In its widest sense,'e-business'refers to the application of these technologies in business

processes, including primary functions (such as production, inbound and outbound logistics or sales), and support functions (such as administration, controlling, procurement

the former internet hype was replaced suddenly by a widespread disappointment with e-business strategies. Companies adopted a more

data exchanges between businesses and their suppliers and customers, fostered by progress in the definition

"Web 2. 0"and social networking are discussed widely in terms of their business E-business in the transport & logistics industry

-electronically (offline), and all combinations of electronic and non-electronic implementation are possible. It is therefore difficult to decide which components actually

While the narrow definition focuses on'internet transactions'alone, the broad definition defines e-commerce as"the sale or purchase of

and other public or private organisations, conducted over computer-mediated networks. The goods and services are ordered over those networks, but the payment

and the ultimate delivery of the goods or service may be conducted on-or offline"(OECD 2001).

11 while fully recognising the importance of the internet during the pre-purchase phase for the initiation of business

public or private organisations, conducted over computer-mediated networks. (OECD E-business: automated business processes (both intra-and inter-firm

over computer mediated networks. OECD e-Interactions: covers the full range of e-transactions as well as

This vision of e-commerce also covers the digitisation of internal business processes the internal processing of documents related to transactions) as well as cooperative or

business processes (both intra-and inter-firm) over computer mediated networks"(OECD 2004, p. 6). In addition, the OECD proposed that e-business processes should integrate

paper-based processing of documents by electronic exchanges (machine to machine-machine but it requires the agreement between the participants on electronic standards and

processes for data exchange E-business and a company's value chains In some contexts, the term c-commerce (collaborative commerce) is used.

Data and information sources The study is based on a mix of data sources and methodologies, including primary data

collection, desk research and case studies. More specifically, information was collected from the following sources Sectoral E-business Watch Survey (2007:

The TLS sector was one of five sectors covered by the Sebw Survey of 2007.

Member States as well as for the United states. In general, data for 1970-2005 are available for the former EU-15 EU MS and for the US,

while data from 1995-2005 are available for 10 new MS that joined the EU in 2004.

The data sources that have been used to create the EU-KLEMS data series are large based on series from the

national statistical institutes (e g. investment series), but also from a variety of national sources, in cases where no international database or statistics from the

NSIS were available (e g. for hours worked by labour type. Various series were linked in order to bridge different vintages of the national accounts according to a

Due to the broad range of sources used and data limitations in these sources, the level of detail in the EU-KLEMS database varies

across countries, industries and variables. 16 Case studies: 12 case studies on e-business adoption in companies from the

16 For more information about the database, see: EU-KLEMS Growth and Productivity Accounts Version 1. 0, Part I Methodology.

Data analysis For data analysis, descriptive and analytical statistical methods were used Descriptive statistics: The discussion of the Sebw survey results in Chapter 3 is mostly

based on descriptive cross-tabular presentation of simple frequencies (typically percentages of enterprises with a certain activity.

basic step in data presentation. The requirement for this step is that micro-data have been aggregated and that weighting has been applied.

Weighting is an important issue for data presentation, as †unfortunately†it is understood not well by many users of data

However, weighting is necessary, as due to stratified sampling the sample size in each size-band is not proportional to the population numbers.

If proportional allocation had been used, the sample sizes in the 250+size-band would have been extremely small, not

combines micro-data analysis (using data from the E-business Survey 2007) and macro -data analysis (using the EU-KLEMS Growth and Productivity Accounts.

More information about the econometric analysis methodology is provided in Annex II Analytical statistical methods that were used include

Using some advance algorithms on the multivariate analysis results, we try to assess the patterns existing among the variables,

We combine this technique with the clustering analysis Cluster analysis: is advanced an data analysis technique useful to group cases

based on their internal similarities. With this technique one can build groups of cases (companies) with a similar profile based on some relevant indicators or

variables (like the percentage of employees with internet access at their workplace and analyse their main characteristics in terms of e-business adoption and results

comparable e-business data and results for the land transport and logistics sectors, due to their huge importance in the European competitiveness and future economic

technological development has to be at the core. In other words, the utilisation of the most up-to-date technologies, including ERTMS,

http://ec. europa. eu/transport/maritime/doc/maritime transport policy en. pdf E-business in the transport & logistics industry

Internet for cargo Standard for information flow Standard data set to describe freight e-maritime Sustainable quality

& efficiency Continuous bottleneck exercise Freight transport logistics personnel and training Improving performance Benchmarking intermodal

Statistical data Simplification of transport chains Simplification of administrative compliance Single transport document Liability Security

Transport is a key driver for the EU-25 outlook in terms of both energy and emissions

high level of integration in the organisational structures and informatics. 47 43 European commission,(2004) Directorate-General for Energy and Transport, European Energy

services (fleet management, traveller information systems, ticketing systems, etc. The case study on real-time passenger information system at Trafikanten, Norway confirms

this asseveration (see Section 5. 11. Trafikanten implemented an innovative information system providing travellers with reliable information on real-time departure times of public

Performing information and communication systems To obtain the quality solutions needed in the organisation and operation of the European

logistics chain requires well performing information and communication systems. Thus means of transport synchronize their activities

One such technology is radio frequency identification (RFID) which is a growing market but requires further research

and work on radio spectrum management interoperability and standardisation. In transport and logistics, RFID is expected to contribute to improved efficiency and security,

and provide new quality services for mobility of people and goods. For instance, the railroads, have fortified RFID with even

more advanced technologies, including GPS, real-time engine-health monitoring and wireless data RFID-enabled supply chains are beneficial in the following ways

reduce inventory levels due to increased confidence in on-hand, in-transit, and manufactured inventory levels minimize stock-outs and inventory shortages

decrease operating costs due to obsolescence, expiration, and spoilage reduce labour costs through automatic identification and physical inventory counts

system that will offer users anywhere in the world"near pinpoint"geographic positioning. The Galileo satellite system will be operational from 2010

Much of today†s applications of information technologies and intelligent transport systems are modal. Intermodal or cross-modal applications are only

terminology, different protocols & data formats proprietary data processing Thus, the development of ICT supporting planning, optimisation, and monitoring of

transport chains is one of the most challenging application domains for computer and business sciences in the transportation sector

standardisation efforts towards a single platform for applications, data and inter -connectivity. In the one hand, the EU is investing considerable public funds in these

meet the demand for comfort, safety and speed through advances in ICT and telematics traffic and transport management systems,

on air quality and greenhouse gas emissions, but high oil prices also have a significant influence on the transport sector and the economy as a whole

that would help the Working group to collect data as is the case of the FRIDA solution

or being warned about congestion ahead, before the user get caught up in it There is no doubt that the ICT is playing also an important enabling role in logistics.

and (iii) data acquisition technologies. 55in what concerns the identification technologies firms may appeal to bar-coding or to RFID.

The bar-coding and RFID are identification technologies that facilitate logistics information collection and exchange

As regards data communications technologies, firms may appeal to the electronic data interchange (EDI), the Internet, the Value Added Network amongst others.

Nowadays, as regards the data acquisition technologies, the firms usually deal with a large amount of

goods and data which means that data collection and exchange are critical for logistics information management and control.

Good quality in data acquisition can help firms deliver customers'goods more accurately and efficiently

Firms need to be able to manage information effectively, and to integrate several logistics activities by including inbound and outbound transportation, distribution, warehousing

and fleet management, in order to streamline the physical product flows of their customer companies. Through the intensive use of ICT (acquisition, communication, and

The impact of information technology on logistics, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 21 (5), 32-7

value for customers, the information and communication systems convert data into information, in order to facilitate managerial decision making.

and e-business are relevant for nearly all core business areas of the TLS industry. Therefore, the issues analysed should rather be understood as representative

opportunities to creatively use the Internet has brought many implications to the organisations core business processes to generate enormous benefits in terms of

performance as well as provide greater value-added products and services. The use of ICT by European enterprises has grown steadily from 2003 to 2005 for several

57 Reis F. The internet and other computer networks and their use by European enterprises to do

Internet and e-business. ICT and e-business activities deployment has thus become increasingly important for the industry.

Low-cost access to the Web and the dissemination of e-business technologies provide firms with a tool to satisfy customer

cooperation between knowledge teams (including virtual teams) using intranet technologies as well as between the organisation and members of its external constituent

system software. Warehouse management systems (WMS) assist managers in tracking products throughout the entire storage and distribution process.

from simple computer automation systems to high-end, feature-rich management programs that improve order picking,

facilitate better dock logistics, and monitor inventory management. Case studies about Geodis (Belgium) and AIT (France)( Chapter 5

frequency identification (RFID), transportation management systems, pick-to-light technology, and voice-activated receiving and packaging

Computer Network Intranet Online purchases business model Online sales business model External integration of business

processes *Transport & Logistics 59 29 21 12 13 EU 25 (ii) †all sectors 65 34 24 12 15

(*)External integration of business processes refer to the automatic linking between a computer system for managing orders and a supplier†s or customer†s business system.

data is not available Source: Eurostat, Community survey on ICT usage and e-commerce in enterprises

of information via the Internet and to secure transactions online with customers. Modern information systems and technology offer opportunities for fast and safe sharing.

Key findings regarding use of and access to ICT in the TLS are summarised below

The prominence of the internet among all computer networks is evident because of its size in terms of the number of persons and enterprises it connects and its

For most EU Member States internet adoption is approaching saturation point. Overall, for the EU, by 2005,91%of enterprises with 10 or

study, nearly all companies (97%)which use computers in the TLS sector said that they

are connected to Internet Exhibit 3. 1-4 Internet access and bandwidth (2007 Of those: Internet access with a maximum bandwidth of †Transport & logistics

with internet access â€<144 kbit/s â€<144 kbit/s †2 Mbit/s â€>2 Mbit/s

Internet connection. By share of employment, firms representing 99%of the sector workforce are connected to Internet

A relevant indicator is the existence of broadband connection. On the path to the adoption of e-business, connectivity is the first step and also a precondition for all

potential benefits of the use of computer networks. Exhibit 3. 1-4 shows also a tendency

58 Reis F. The internet and other computer networks and their use by European†ibid E-business in the transport & logistics industry

of the Internet connection is paramount to the development of e-business. This connection enables an exchange of more information per unit of time and supports the

with Internet Access Average share of employees with internet access in firms â€<144 kbit/s

â€<144 kbit/s †2 Mbit/s â€>2 Mbit/s Weighting%of empl

Use of internal computer networks The use of computer networks internally in the enterprise is believed to yield potential

gains in efficiency and productivity. The adoption of internal computer networks is a first step towards the computer integration of business processes.

Such integration potentially streamlines and boosts the efficiency of the enterprise. A computer network is composed of multiple connected computers that communicate over a wired or wireless (Local Area

Networks †LAN, and Wireless LAN) medium to share data and other resources. In the

TLS industry, as shown in Exhibit 3. 1-6, a half of all firms (75%for the Logistic sub

-sector) representing 75%of employees operate a LAN However, the deployment of the Wireless LAN technology only reach 22%of the sector

companies, although it is used already by about a half of the large-sized firms, and even

one third of the small companies. As it can be seen, the use of ICT to connect computers

internally to a company network increases with company size. For both of these ICT infrastructure indicators, there is a difference between the EU countries (LAN, 50

LAN WLAN Intranet Extranet Remote access Weighting%of empl %of firms %of empl %of firms

The size and scalability of any computer network are determined both by the physical medium of communication and by the software controlling the communication (i e.,

, the protocols). ) An Intranet is a specific application of the internal computer network which serves as a communication tool within the enterprise,

and an Extranet can be viewed as part of a company's Intranet that is extended to users outside the company.

As such both can be regarded as a next step in the use of the internal computer network as e

-business. Around one quarter of the TLS sector firms use an Intranet and, again, it

depends on the company size, ranging from a relative small 23%for micro-sized firms to

%Remote access means that employees can access data from the company's computer system remotely, e g. when working from home or travelling.

Voice over internet Protocol, also called Voip, IP Telephony, Internet telephony Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is the routing of

voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network. Some Voip services offer features and services that are not available with a traditional phone,

or are available but only for an additional fee. The provision of Voip is driven by increasing

broadband penetration. Some cost savings are due to utilising a single network to carry voice and data, especially where users have existing underutilised network capacity that

can carry Voip at no additional cost. Voip to Voip phone calls are sometimes free, while

Voip to public switched telephone networks (PSTN), 59 may have a cost that's borne by

the Voip user A major development starting in 2004 has been the introduction of mass-market Voip

come from software developers Exhibit 3. 1-7 Percentage of firms who uses Voice-over-IP in the TLS sector

telephony might be converted to internet protocol 59 The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the network of the world's public circuit

-switched telephone networks, in much the same way that the Internet is the network of the

world's public IP-based packet-switched networks. Originally a network of fixed-line analog

telephone systems, the PSTN is now almost entirely digital E-business in the transport & logistics industry

The econometric analysis presented in this report using the EU KLEMS database shows that in the transport and logistics industries, high-skilled labour is more important

http://ec. europa. eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/e-skills-forum-2004-09-fsr. pdf

ftp://ftp. cenorm. be/PUBLIC/CWAS/e-Europe/ICT-Skill/CWA15515-00-2006-Feb. pdf

hand, ICT user skills as the â€oecapabilities required for effective application of ICT systems and devices by the individual.

ICT users apply systems as tools in support of their own work, which is, in most cases, not ICT.

User skills cover the utilisation of common generic software tools and the use of specialised tools supporting business functions within

industries other than the ICT industryâ€. 63 There are companies-usually medium and large-sized firms-that can afford employing ICT practitioners, while small companies

Based on the data from the TLS Sebw Survey 2007, where companies were asked if their product or service innovations introduced by the company in the last 12 months

continuously upgrade e-skills stems from technological change an increasingly from Internet-enabled global sourcing

Employers are now less likely to see training just as a cost but also as an investment

intelligence and skills of ICT users determines the positive or negative impact that ICT investments may have on the success of the TLS business (see Section 4. 1

As Internet commerce grows in popularity and importance, companies are finding that designing developing, and maintaining cutting edge Web-sites

Focussing on core competencies by outsourcing noncritical activities to specialised providers is a general trend in the TLS industry,

web hosting) than to employ their own ICT practitioners. The case study AIT (France confirms this observation (Section 5. 2). The choice of a small company as a solution

in ICT hardware or networks during the past 12 months Weighting:%%of empl %of firms

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a set of standards70 for structuring information that is to be exchanged electronically between and within businesses, organisations

era of technologies such as XML services, the Internet and the World wide web, EDI is still the data format used by the vast majority of electronic commerce transactions in the

world. The problem with EDI is that it does very little to improve and automate business

http://www. anacom. pt/streaming/98 34 ec. pdf? categoryid=94579&contentid=159752&field =ATTACHED FILE E-business in the transport & logistics industry

Data for TLS total weighted by employment (read "firms representing x%of employment"),data for

size-bands in%of enterprises Source: Sectoral E-business Watch Survey 2007 Figures related to the TLS sector shows

The widespread adoption of XML as a common data language is giving B2b integration the critical mass it needs for rapid growth.

electronic business using extensible Markup language 72 See www. ebxml. org 73 For detailed information about the background and adoption of XML and ebxml, see e

Interoperability refers to the"ability of two or more systems to exchange data, and to

exchange information between heterogeneous information systems. 76 Standards such as ebxml can help by simplifying this process.

based on Global Navigation Satellite systems and Cellular networks (GNSS/CN"."The standard will provide the main technical requirement for the achievement of

A Cross Sector Perspective and Outlook 76 In the context of information systems, heterogeneity means that the systems are somehow

different from each other. Two heterogeneous systems are difficult to integrate and hence, they are said to have low interoperability

-Sector Perspective and Outlook, E-business W@tch Special report, 2005 78 Technical Committee 278 (2007) â€oeroad Transport and Traffic Telematicsâ€, Open Call for Project

http://www. cen. eu/cenorm/tc278. pdf E-business in the transport & logistics industry 52

Programme), related to mobile personal assistance for travel information, published by ICT Results79 (see business example

A mobile, personal access device providing location-based transport information, mapping and routing, navigation and other related services

sites. Existing travel and transport information services often lack data outside a limited range of general facts.

In addition they tend to employ a variety of user interfaces and service delivery platforms. This limited content

and lack of standardisation have been major limiting factors in their attraction to users, inhibiting the wider spread of useful, real-time location-based

information services Participants in the IST-funded IM@GINE-IT project (www. imagineit-eu. com

function in real-time, offer multimedia, intermodal transport information, and take account of the personal preferences of the user.

IM@GINE-IT will end in June 2006, having built defined system architecture, a data management

module and a localisation algorithm, as well as having developed information services for multimodal forms of transport.

That the participants have largely achieved their aims is a credit to the cooperation between the various

The IM@GINE-IT personal assistant is a small additional piece of software that will run on any mobile device,

be it a mobile phone, mobile PC, PDA or in-car system. By communicating with Web-based services hosting the

relevant information, the IM@GINE IT device offers an integrated route -guidance system which combines in-vehicle, pedestrian, public transport and

public building route guidance modules. Transport advice is multi-modal covering car, bus, train, metro, tram, ship, airplane, airport facilities and even

The system has been tested by around 100 users at five European sites in Finland, Germany, Italy, Greece and Hungary

IM@GINE IT website: www. imagineit-eu. com Although this business example shows a well managed

3. 3. 3 Use of Open source Software The open source model Open source software (OSS) is computer software

which source code is available under a license (or arrangement such as the public domain. This permits users to use, change

and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. Open source is cited frequently as one of the most important movements in modern software

creation. Related projects are supported by the European Commission82 and almost every further and higher education institution makes use of open source software.

The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock in.

Open source licenses define the privileges and restrictions a licensor must follow in order to use, modify or redistribute the open-source

software OSS includes software with source code in the public domain and software distributed under an open-source license.

It is developed often in a public, collaborative manner and is the most prominent example of open source development

and often compared to user generated content. The cost of immediate acquisition to the end-user is usually minimal

this is because the right to freely redistribute the software makes selling licences for copies of open source software an unlikely business proposition

The following research example shows the possibility of OSS in the logistics field: the Open source Warehouse Management System, developed at Fraunhofer-Institut fã r

Materialfluss und Logistik in Dortmund, Germany Mywms-The Open source Warehouse Management System Modern Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) have to operate quite a number of

different interfaces, consider restricted storage strategies, minimize transport routes and times, support different kinds of stocktaking and many other things.

Despite of existing standards, e g. VDI or FEM which cover partial fields, there are no generally accepted

standards for WMS. The suppliers of WMS have to use their own, often limited development capacities to their activities.

Because there are no generally accepted interfaces, they often have no possibility to purchase external module-for example for

the optimisation of trips, for the prohibition to store goods together or for the optimal

Networked Enterprise Applications and Software, FP6 508011), coordinated by University Bordeaux 1 with 47 partners and more than 300 researchers

81 ATHENA Advanced Technologies for Interoperability of Heterogeneous Enterprise Networks and their Applications-Is integrated an Project sponsored by the European commission in

open source software. In October 2006, it granted â 3m towards a project, called SQO-OSS, to

test the quality of open source software. And just days before, the Commission extended its open source web portal, the Open source Observatory

http://ec. europa. eu/idabc/en/chapter/452) to develop interoperability between applications E-business in the transport & logistics industry

Open source development Another approach which has already been implemented successfully in many projects is based on openness and transparency and parallelizes some of the above mentioned

codes of a software project as well as a permanent communication between all participants. This makes the interface specifications, the system architecture and the data

models available to everyone The WMS can also benefit from such a development style. Such project is presently

mywms, the Open source Warehouse Management System. This system is designed with modern software technologies and tools with the aim to create a widely accepted

WMS with well-defined interfaces and data models. mywms will be object oriented and coded in the programming language JAVA.

Free software products will be used for the development and operation. LINUX, for example, will be preferred the operating system and Postgresql the preferred database.

The complete user interface is based browser i e. it uses the common web browsers. This allows for the use of existing network

structures and inexpensive personal computers with almost any operating system as workplace computer The first level includes a core system with the inventory management, the master data

management and the possibility to enter and process storage and retrieval orders. For practical use mywms has to support concrete interfaces to ERP-systems and the

conveyors. For this purpose, corresponding programme modules will be developed and saved in a driver library. The further development of mywms includes a coupling to ERP

-systems, an extension of the supported conveyor elements, the integration of simple storage strategies and the optimisation of and coupling to an e-shop.

The interface to SAP-systems will be certified for mywms. 83 Deployment of Open source Software Deployment of open source software should follow the same pattern of evaluation of

needs, testing, and acquisition from a supplier and so on as would be used with proprietary software. The cost of deploying and supporting software, whether open

source or closed source, is very often much higher than the simple cost of licence

acquisition, and will often be the principal component of the total cost of ownership. 84

There are clearly a number of Open source products that can offer a fast return on investment, because they are genuinely excellent software products

and the support is acceptable. In comparison with proprietary software OSS is more inexpensive in acqui

-sition and use (total costs of ownership), also because the direct and indirect main -tenance costs are significantly lower.

By integrating open standards in designs and other 83 Available at www. mywms. org/export/sites/default/introduction/downloadgallery/mywms beschreibung en

pdf 84 Joint Information systems Committee (JISC),(2006) Open source Software briefing paper http://www. jisc. ac. uk/publications/publications/pub ossbp. aspx

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 55 applications and platforms OSS heightens the efficiency

of which ICT-applications are developed The availability of the source code supports a high innovation grade, next to more

efficient maintenance of the software which will result in a more effective effort by ICT

experts. The cost is very low, but it has to take into account the learning curve and the

cost of deployment and also the potential impact on the rest of the software that they are

expected to integrate with. OSS doesn't exclude the use of proprietary"closed source "software.

The owner of a closed system can let his programme cooperate with open -source software;

after all he has access to the complete source. The opposite-closed source code, not able to cooperate with other programs-is more common than an

exception in the world of modern IT. Frequent implementation of OSS within companies improves interoperability of computer systems and with that the strategic strength

A recent research has found that almost 40%of European companies already use some type of open source software,

and a further 8%reported plans to pilot it during 2006. Web server and server operating systems are the top two areas,

with two-thirds of firms using alternatives like Apache, Tomcat, or Linux. 85 The E-business Watch 2007 sectoral study

confirmed that operating systems (including Linux) based on OSS are used widely by large companies (nearly 50%).86

Exhibit 3. 3-3 shows that for the TLS industry the use of OSS clearly increases by firm

size: more large companies use OSS than small companies. In particular, internet browsers (including Mozilla and Firefox) based on OSS appear to be used widely by

companies from the TLS industry (21%.%Among the large sized firms, about 47%say that they use OSS browsers.

Special emphasis should be put on the deployment of OS Software in micro and small enterprises which constitute the vast majority of TLS

companies Exhibit 3. 3-3: Companies using Open source Software 8 9 21 28 10 13

32 41 21 24 30 47 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

45 50 TL (EU-7) 10-49 50-249 250 +Open source operating system Open source databases Open source browsers

Base (100%:%Companies using computers. N (for sector, EU-7)= 997. Weighting: Totals (for the sector and for

all 7 sectors) are weighted by firms. Figures for size-bands are in%of enterprises from the size-band

Questionnaire reference: A13a, A13b and A13c 85 Forrester research, Inc. 2005. â€oeis Open source Gaining Adoption In Europe?

†http://www. forrester. com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0, 7211,38061, 00. html 86 See E-business Watch (Survey 2007

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 56 Source: Sectoral E-business Watch (Survey 2007 In addition to the possible cost savings of using OSS that can be essential for SMES

OSS provides a number of attributes that favour SMES. One of them is the ability to adapt

software for local needs. Proprietary software companies are concentrated usually global in a few parts of the world.

This is the nature of the software market, which, thanks to network effects and proprietary standards tends towards natural monopolies. 87 Also,

as is the case in the TLS sector, many large corporations are now deploying Open source

products at the heart of their IT, but doing so in a considered and responsible way. 88

Digital signature In cryptography, a digital signature or digital signature scheme is a type of asymmetric

cryptography used to simulate the security properties of a signature in digital, rather than written, form. 89 Digital signatures use

what is known as"public key cryptography"(PKI which employs an algorithm using two different but mathematically related"keys":

"one for creating a digital signature or transforming data into a seemingly unintelligible form, which

involves the user's secret or private key, and another key for verifying a digital signature

or returning the message to its original form which involves the user's public key.

The output of the signature process is called the"digital signatureâ€. A digital signature can be

used with any kind of message, whether it is encrypted or not, simply so that the receiver can be sure of the sender's identity

and that the message arrived intact The prospect of fully implementing digital signatures in general commerce presents both

A digital signer will require software, and will probably have to pay a certification authority some price to issue a certificate

Hardware to secure the subscriber's private key may also be advisable. Persons relying on digital signatures will incur expenses for verification software and

perhaps for access to certificates and certificate revocation lists in a repository On the plus side, the principal advantage to be gained is more reliable authentication of

Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU

Final Report. http://ec. europa. eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact. pdf

Open source: Revenge of the Nerds, IT DIRECTOR 89 Wikipedia, http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Digital signature

90 American Bar Association Section of Science and Technology Information security Committee E-business in the transport & logistics industry

3. 3. 4 Deployment and implications of RFID technology Factors determining the use of RFID in the TLS industry

The current business environment requires that companies cut inventory and operational costs, and optimise supply chain management (SCM.

the use of RFID. In transport and logistics, RFID is expected to contribute to improved efficiency and security,

and provide new quality services for mobility of people and goods Using RFID, companies can track

and monitor goods without scanning them using bar code scanners. Thus, RFID Technology and Systems RFID can be viewed as a

competitor to the barcode, or a more advanced technology than the barcode. This technology streamlines warehouse management systems,

As the use of RFID touches a wide range of policy issues, including spectrum policy

possible concerns raised by the deployment of RFID technology and its applications. 91 In practice, although the technology is not new,

It is an enormous step to move from the present market to one where RFID is

RFID deployment could strengthen the role of ICT in driving innovation and promoting economic growth. In the transport industry, RFID systems have the inherent capacity to

assist in vehicle identification, tracking and tracing and thereby enhance both economic efficiency and security.

RFID systems are playing a role in increasing load factors and hence reducing empty running.

In logistics applications, RFID enables service providers and forwarders to better track and trace consignments on the different legs of transport processes.

transport units and vehicles with RFID technology, the asset management of these transport operators can be improved

Using RFID technologies for ticketing in public transport will not only lower transaction handling costs and reduce fare dodging,

2004) RFID Logistics Case studies-Thirty detailed RFID logistics case studies E-business in the transport & logistics industry

trends and forecasts indicate that the RFID market will grow fast in the next 10 years

Although RFID technology was tested proven and in the past 3 years under a huge variety of operational conditions, environments and applications, enterprises that commit

to the RFID journey are and will still be facing some challenges that need to be overcome

Results from the present Sebw survey show a very limited use of RFID technologies yet

the freight transport companies said they used RFID. The highest percent of those firms 77%)said that they use RFID technologies to manage goods, products and services in

-house. Only large firms show the higher adoption of RFID technologies (24 %Exhibit 3. 3-5:%

%of companies using RFID †by sub-sector 12 12 14 13 0 10 20 30 40 50

T&l-total (EU-7 Passenger trans Freight transport Logistics Data are weighted by employment (read:""firms

representing x%of employment"in the sector Base: all companies Exhibit 3. 3-6: RFID application areas(%of

RFID users applying it for a given purpose 82 36 29 77 0 20 40 60 80

10 0 to support the order of goods to manage products inhouse to support customer

In%of firms (out of those using RFID Base: companies using RFID Source: Sectoral E-business Watch (Survey 2007

Nevertheless, if the typical innovation life-cycle applies to RFID technology, a possible scenario for the TLS industry is that the technology will be adopted by medium-sized and

smaller companies once it has proven successful in larger firms, and when the technology has matured

93 Towards an RFIC Policy for Europe (2007), RFID in Transport and Logistics, RFID Consultation

http://www. rfidconsultation. eu/workshops/18/124. html E-business in the transport & logistics industry

More and more the Internet is becoming a major part of the corporate environment and driving decisions. The new capabilities to use the Internet to supply large amounts of

relevant information from multiple internal and external sources give the possibility to move from isolated information systems toward an integrated environment in every

business organisation. Current opinion holds that Internet-based supply chain integration with upstream suppliers and downstream customers-"e-integration"-is superior to

traditional ways of doing business True process improvements can only be achieved through automation, which implies the

integration of business applications and data with the Internet and with the systems of the

these core business processes leads to faster cycle times, reduced overhead, more competitive offerings, and increased visibility into business drivers

gains realised by setting up a disjoint web front-end. The difference between the two approaches can mean taking a leadership position in the industry due to significant

critical core business processes 3. 4. 1 Use of software systems for internal process integration Specific software applications for knowledge management are intended to help

companies organising information that is relevant for employees in a way that they can easily retrieve and use it.

A document management system (DMS) is a computer system or set of computer programs) used to track

and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents. A DMS system allows an enterprise

and its users to create a document or capture a hard copy in electronic form, store, edit,

print, process, and otherwise manage documents in image, video, and audio, as well as in text form, to fulfil

large number of documents such as invoices, sales orders, photographs, phone interviews, or video news clips

systems integrate (or attempt to integrate) all data and processes of an organisation into a unified system.

A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration.

A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the use of a unified database to store data for the various system modules.

Although the term ERP originated in the manufacturing environment, today's use of the term ERP

and information technology, this would include accounting, human resources, marketing, and strategic management In the TLS sector the use of ERP systems is notably low (6),

data in standardised, electronic format is hardly possible One of the main causes regarding this situation is also that the change from the non-ERP

Exhibit 3. 4-1 Use of e-business software systems Companies having†Transport & logistics sector TLS

†a software application to manage the placing or receipt of orders †a warehouse or

industry reported the use of software solutions or internet-based services for e -procurement (see Exhibit 3. 4-1). This shows that there is a gap between the percentage

software for this (20%.%It can be assumed that companies without such software place orders mainly through websites or extranets of suppliers,

which does not require any special e-procurement system. The digital back-office integration of procurement related

processes (all the way from ordering to the receipt of goods/services) is probably not in advanced state in these cases.

%SCM software can help companies from the TLS industry to match supply and demand through integrated and collaborative interaction tools.

telematics system an ITS Weighting%of empl %of firms %of empl %of firms %of empl

presented data: one tenth of the TLS sector firms use a fleet control system, the rate of

telematics systems and Intelligent Transport Systems, while in some other areas, US companies appear to be more active using specific software systems, like cargo handling

technology and intermodal transportation management systems As in many other ICT technologies, Poland shows the lowest values in the adoption of

as maintenance management systems, fleet control systems, telematics systems and intermodal management systems 3. 4. 2 Use of ICT for cooperative and collaborative business processes

the Internet economy to companies to more tightly integrate their processes, the next wave of business communication centres around cross-enterprise application integration

has legal implications to both transacting parties. e-invoicing is mediated a computer transaction between a seller/invoicer (invoicing entity) and a buyer/payer (receiving

of either an advanced electronic signature as defined in the â€oee Signature Directive†1999/93/EC) 98 or by EDI

http://europa. eu. int/eurlex/pri/en/oj/dat/2002/l 015/l 01520020117en00240028. pdf (October 2007

Community framework for electronic signatures. Available at http://europa. eu. int/eurlex/pri/en/oj/dat/2000/l 013/l 01320000119en00120020. pdf (October

2007 E-business in the transport & logistics industry 66 3. 4. 4 Substitution of paper-based processes

If a customer or supplier has an ERP system, data related to orders (received or placed) is exchanged typically in a paper-less way between the ERP

processing of data during all transaction phases (request for quotations/proposals placing the order, order confirmation, invoicing process, dispatch confirmation

Data exchange between ERP systems represents the most sophisticated form of e -business. However, due to the low rate of adoption of ERP systems in the TLS sector

Exhibit 3. 4-4 Data exchange with business partners Companies characterising their typical data processing and

exchange with business partners as †Transport & Logistics Sector"mostly verbally ""mostly in paper based

As expected, most of the companies where data with business partners is processed and exchanged mostly verbal are sized the small ones (76%.

and exchange data with business partners mostly electronically (Exhibit 3. 4-4 An example of a transport document management system

The solution is based on a software solution that allows automating the exchange of documents between customers

through different formats like e-mail, fax, SMS, XML, etc. This software is linked to the internal information system of CEMAT, an Italian company specialised in combined

transport of containers, trailers, swap bodies and vehicles on land and sea. The case also highlights the difficulties faced in the adoption of the solution by the end users

3. 5 e-Procurement and Supply Chain Integration Integration of different supply chain actors and processes is one of the most important

goal in any SCM project considering that the more integrated, the better the performance of the supply chain.

materials, office and production supplies and information systems) for all parts of the value chain. Procurement activities aim at anticipating requirements, sourcing and

Internet technology provides ways of drastically reducing different categories of transaction and communication costs. In that

depends on a third party to provide the data, it is very important to get a clear

core business processes. For these type of reasons, e-procurement has been seen to have the potential to play a pivotal role in a firm†s endeavours to â€oecreate a competitive

+Data for TLS total weighted by employment (read:""firms representing x%of employment "data for size-bands in%of enterprises.

Base: all companies E-business in the transport & logistics industry 70 3. 5. 1 B2b online trading:

significant amount of the trade which is conducted on the Internet, and is expected to account for the vast majority of it within a few years.

services over the Internet for a simpler, faster and more reliable exchange of information with the customer.

the Internet (Commande@RESAFRET), follow transport progression in real time Info@RESAFRET), transmit their transport documents (e-LV)

The â€oeclic Services Fret SNCF€ portal was developed using PHP and Dot Net languages. Security is guaranteed via SSL encryption of information and via a

dedicated login and password for each user. The service has been a success on the E-business in the transport & logistics industry

an external integration perspective IOIS100 constituting automated information systems shared by two or more companies, can be used to support information-sharing with

extensible mark up language (XML), electronic data access (EDA) and the Internet To meet customer demand for seamless, comprehensive and reliable information on

which to base business decisions today, companies must integrate data from the many sources involved in a customer†s supply chain.

It means that collaborating with the customers and own business partners and vendors, and also with the customers other

companies, a possible explanation is that many companies have software for managing their inventory and supplies internally, without really integrating suppliers directly through

interorganisational information systems (IOIS E-business in the transport & logistics industry 72 Exhibit 3. 5-3 Supply chain integration:%

%firms using SCM software/sharing information on inventory levels with suppliers (2007 4 8 22

SCM software is intended thus to manage numerous and different activities and tasks many of which have their own specific software.

Some vendors have assembled these different chunks of software together under a single solution, but the development of a

complete package that is right for every company is a big challenge. As a result, SCM

Data on SCM usage in the TLS sector in Europe are analysed in Section 3. 5. 1 of this

Warehouse management systems utilize Auto ID Data Capture technology, such as barcode scanners, mobile computers, wireless LANS and

potentially RFID to efficiently monitor the flow of products. Once data has been collected there is either batch synchronisation with,

or a real-time wireless transmission to a central database. The database can then provide useful reports about the status of goods in the

warehouse The detailed setup and processing within a WMS can vary significantly from one software

vendor to another; however the basic logic will use a combination of item, location quantity unit of measure,

and order information to determine where to stock, where to pick, and in what sequence to perform these operations

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 74 In the TLS sector about 15%of

companies use a WMS. Generally larger companies tend to make more use of WMS than smaller ones:

Data for sector totals and sub-sectors are weighted by employment; data for size-bands in%of firms

Source: Sectoral E-business Watch (Survey 2007 Case studies about WMS in France Geodis Group The case study about Geodis Group (see Section 5. 7) shows a typical example for

solution also provided the company with detailed data analysis on the whole company activity and the optimisation of different processes like customer billing, purchasing and

of affected user groups. Private actors involved in freight transport include shippers transport operators, logistics service providers, receivers (shop owners), vehicle

including vehicle telematics (onboard units), global positioning systems (GPS), smart cards, and video messaging signs that

can be linked to traffic management systems and/or to freight transport management systems..Many of these systems have been initiated

ICT, and in particular the internet, can be used in various ways to support marketing activities, including the communication with customers, offering products for sale, and

data entry and reduces errors and delays. It also allows companies to develop new value-added services such as automated track and tracing systems, monitoring of

status of the transport over a Web interface to customers. Although some customers are very satisfied with the solution,

108 E-Logistics, Free Essays, Cliff Notes and Term Paper Database. Available at http://www. essays. cc/free essays/b2/utv192. shtml

software management (â€oegoalâ€) system with GPS train control (â€oee-trainâ€. Hupac is a leading company in combined transport across The swiss Alps and in transport of

implemented an innovative information technology solution that manages transport information in real time and coordinates all phases of intermodal traffic from departure to

accurate information about vehicle arrival and departure time via Internet, mobile channels and through signs available at the stops.

over 245 railway stations where each selling point is equipped with a PC and a printer linked to the different systems. 90 million tickets have been sold through the system and

elements and public transport smart cards which interact in specific ways thus ensuring that the passenger can travel without problems using the

smart card are processed Electronic payment in practice: The passenger has an OV-chipkaart. The passenger holds the OV-chipkaart near the card reader when entering and

website of Trans Link Systems http://www. translink. nl/;/ERTICO †ITS Europe e-Newsletter:

a variety of channels, such as web pages, email, automated phone (Automated Voice Response AVR) or SMS

Analytical-analysis of customer data for a broad range of purposes (for example in order to segment customers or to design and execution of targeted marketing

telecommunication services (48 %and in the tourism industry (23 %Exhibit 3. 6-1: Percentage of firms with a CRM

Data for sector totals and sub-sectors are weighted by employment; data for size-bands in%of firms

Source: Sectoral E-business Watch (Survey 2007 The relatively low diffusion of CRM technology within micro and small firms should not

CRM software suites are quite expensive and require intensive organisational preparation to be introduced effectively in a company.

%Companies using computers and which have the respective business function asked N (for sector, EU-7)= 970

%Companies using computers and saying that only some or none of their processes are conducted as e-business

3. 8 Cluster analysis: Employees with internet access at their workplace In this section we perform an advanced cluster analysis on the survey results using the

percentage of employees that have internet access at their workplace as the main clustering analysis. With this type of analysis we use the clustering data analysis

technique to group the different transport and logistics sector companies in order to have three different clusters of similar companies based on the percentage of employees that

In the following table we have the clustering algorithm results for the variable â€oepercentage of employees that have internet access at their workplaceâ€.

on website Exhibit 3. 8-1: Cluster centres (means) and number of cases for the percentage of employees

have internet access at their workplace Percentage of firms having a LAN Percentage of firms

website Weighting:%%of firms%of firms%of firms%of firms%of firms 1. Low 374 9 52 19 22

firms having a LAN, A w-LAN and their on website. Showing that the level of internet

access among the employees (and the implied computer usage) is related to the LAN, W -LAN and own company website adoption

In Exhibit 3. 8-3 we analyse the relationships between clusters and number of employees

of the companies by groups(%of firms weighting. The chart reveals that mid sized groups tend to have relatively more companies in the low cluster compared to small and

LAN and W-LAN and company website usage variables (means of percentages of firms 9

%of firms with their own website Exhibit 3. 8-3: Clusters of percentage of employees that have internet access at their

of firms in the high internet usage by employees cluster. The passenger transport sector is in an intermediate position regarding the cluster distribution.

being the medium internet usage cluster the cluster of companies with more probability of increasing their market share

algorithm is a statistical technique that tests the relationship between analysed variables If the Chi-square statistic is significant at a certain alpha level

Concerning the rate of Internet adoption, the TLS sector infrastructure,(which values close to saturation point)) and the rate of connectivity (more than a half of the sector firms

related to Internet or connectivity in future surveys Thus, the existing ICT infrastructure and e-business software systems analysed in the

preceding sections led the TLS sector to a situation in which only a quarter of firms have

According to the survey data, large TLS enterprises are currently increasing focus on ICT issues, as they have started introducing more advanced ICT solutions such as e

Open source Software. The use of OSS seems to be correlated positively to the size of the company in employees.

In particular Internet browsers (including Mozilla and Firefox) based on OSS appear to be used widely by companies from the

sector RFID. There†s a very limited use of RFID technologies yet. Only 2%of firms (23

from a total of 1097 surveyed firms) have declared that they do use this technology, mainly large-sized firms

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 93 4 Drivers and impacts of ICT adoption

productivity and links with the skills base, EU-KLEMS data have been used. 109 The analysis of links between ICT adoption and innovation, market structure

characteristics is based on micro-data from the E-business Survey 2007 The"structure-conduct-performance"paradigm

109 EU-KLEMS is a database on measures of economic growth, productivity, employment creation capital formation and technological change at the industry level for all European union member

The compilation of this database was funded a project by the European commission, Research Directorate General, as part of the 6th Framework

and considering the data that are available for a given sector in EU-KLEMS and from the Sectoral E-business Watch

adoption of ICT hardware and software correlates with innovation activity of firms "conduct"),and whether there are any significant links between innovation activity

Studies on the impact of ICT confirm productivity increasing effects in both the user sectors and in the ICT producing sectors (Oliner and Sichel, 2000.

and telecommunication (Jorgenson, Ho, Samuels, Stiroh, 2007, Jorgenson, Ho, Stiroh 2007, Inklaar, Timmer, van Ark, 2007

The empirical analyses in sections 4. 1. 2 till 4. 1. 4 will be based on data from the EU

storageâ€), the EU KLEMS database published by the Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC) in March 2007 does not allow the retrieval of the data for

land transport activities and related logistics services sector alone. 112 Hence our empirical analysis must focus on the more broadly defined sector â€oetransport and storage†(code

) The fact that the internet and globalisation have led to many closely-knitted inter -linkages between land, water and air transport

an argument in favour of looking at the data at a somewhat higher aggregation level than

EUKLEMS database, GGDC; own calculations Growth accounting of gross value added Growth accounting of gross value added components is used a commonly approach that

ten EU member countries for which the necessary data was available over the period from 1995-2004.

EUKLEMS database, GGDC; own calculations 4. 1. 3 ICT impact on labour productivity growth Labour productivity growth in the transport and logistics sector

The EU KLEMS data contains consistent annual data for a subset of the EU-27 (typically

Data on labour input are available in terms of labour productivity employment, average hours worked per employee and total working hours.

EUKLEMS database, GGDC; own calculations Expectedly and in line with other research (e g. van Ark et al. 2003), we cannot detect an

EUKLEMS database, GGDC; own calculations Exhibit 4. 1-5: Average working hours per employee in transport intermediation services, EU-15 member

EUKLEMS database, GGDC; own calculations E-business in the transport & logistics industry 102 The impact of ICT on labour productivity growth

stochastic production possibility frontier (SPF) model by using a panel data set for 14 EU member states for which all necessary data was defined available as EU-14). 114

Specifically, we have used the error component model suggested by Battese and Coelli 1992), which allows for estimating the industry†s efficient, state-of-the-art production

Gross production value per total working hours based on EU-141 Multi-Country-Panel Explanatory variables Coefficient Standard error t-value

EUKLEMS database of GGDC, own calculations. DIW Berlin 2008 The parameter estimates obtained are measures for the respective output elasticity of the

Data requirements include gross production value, total intermediate inputs, total working hours, ICT-capital stock, non-ICT

115 For the econometric estimation, the software package Frontiers 4. 1 was used (Coelli, 1996 E-business in the transport & logistics industry

ICT-impact"which cannot be measured by means of the data on ICT-investment available in the database

116 t-values above 2 assure by a rule of thumb this 5%-signficance threshold of the test

119 This was confirmed, for example, for the telecommunication industry by an analysis on the J -curve of innovation (Erber 2005, Aral, Brynolfsson, Wu 2006

information about inventory levels with business partners) to share data with business partners The analysis is conducted at the micro-level,

using data from the E-business Watch Survey 2007 Internal capacity Knowledge stock and skills found a firm†s absorptive capacity to adopt new technologies

assets include investments in software, training and organisational transformations that accompany ICT investments. In other words, firms that combine high levels of ICT and

The hypothesis is tested on the basis of data from the E-business Survey 2007. In order to focus the analysis only on ICT-enabled innovations,

or teams managing the same tasks (Mcafee, 2006 Rather than e-commerce, it is the use of electronic networks that leads to a higher

The hypothesis is tested on the basis of data from the E-business Survey 2007. Again the analysis focuses only on ICT-enabled innovations.

the relationship between ICT-enabled innovation and the use of electronic data and information exchange between business partners, a probit regression was run

The hypothesis is tested on the basis of data from the E-business Survey 2007. The analysis focuses only on

and analysis of data, assuming that one variable is dependent upon another single independent variable (simple regression) or

specified in the software design The copy-exactly strategy is particularly beneficial if the initial understanding of the

On the other hand, tools, such as email, knowledge management systems, wikis or instant messaging, considerably improve the process of innovation in knowledge

of work, such as banking (Mcafee, 2006. ICT facilitates firms†innovativeness by propagating innovations that are structured less than business processes.

The hypothesis is tested on the basis of data from the E-business Survey 2007. The dependent variable controlling for organisational changes is based on companiesâ€

Infrastructure endowment index that comprises of hardware components used by a firm and includes the share of employees with an internet access at their workplace

internet connection capacity and the use of LAN, Intranet and Extranet Software endowment index that comprises of software applications used by a firm

The index includes the following applications: a software application to manage the placing or receipt of orders, ERM, SCM,

CRM and the use of the internet to buy and sell goods ICT human capital variable that controls for the presence of ICT practitioners

In addition, the regression includes dummy variables controlling for the percentage of employees with a higher university degree, firm size, age and country of origin.

analyse the relationship between ICT-enabled innovation and the use of electronic data and information exchange between business partners,

Software index (A6, A7, B1, B3) 0. 362***0. 060 IT practitioners (E1) 0. 571***0. 195

ICT hardware of little importance for organisational changes: Hardware endowment, measured in terms of network infrastructure usage and internet

access, does not increase the likelihood of introducing organisational changes Software use and IT practitioners drive organisational changes:

The intensity of ICT applications and in particular IT-skilled employees are the major drivers of organisational changes.

This together with the previous result indicates that ICT skills, soft-and hardware have different implications for companies†conduct and

performance. Whereas hardware is a necessary condition for an efficient ICT use it is not a sufficient condition for business transformation.

These are rather human 123 Similar to probit/logit regressions, ordered logit model is used when the dependent variable is

skills combined with innovative software that enable firms to rearrange their operations, functions and workflows,

Hardware infrastructure, in contrast, is already a commodity that does not offer companies any potential to create a competitive advantage

The hypothesis is tested on the basis of data from the E-business Survey 2007. The dependent variable accounting for the intensity of the ICT usage is a sum of answers to

the questions regarding the internet connection type (score between 1 and 4), the use of LAN, WLAN, WWW, Intranet, Extranet, ERM, SCM, CRM, the use of the internet to sell

and buy goods and employing IT practitioners (one score for each positive answer Thus, the variable can take values between â€oe0†and â€oe14â€.

At the beginning of the internet era, a common believe was that ICT and e-commerce were to eliminate the limitations of location

are entries of internet start-ups Amazon or ebay are already icons of e-commerce that changed the landscape of the

retailing industry. Though of a smaller magnitude, these effects hold for traditional shops as well ICT offers existing firms possibilities to expand their market reach, which consequently

The hypothesis is tested on the basis of data from the E-business Survey 2007. The dependent variable accounting for the change of a firm†s market share can take one out

the questions regarding the internet connection type (score between 1 and 4), the use of LAN, WLAN, WWW, Intranet, Extranet, ERM, SCM, CRM, the use of the internet to sell

and buy goods and employing IT practitioners (one score for each positive answer Thus, the variable can take values between â€oe0†and â€oe14â€.

The hypothesis is tested on the basis of data from the E-business Survey 2007. The dependent variable can take a value â€oe1†if a company outsourced any of its business

regarding the internet connection type (score between 1 and 4), the use of LAN, WLAN WWW, Intranet, Extranet, ERM, SCM, CRM, the use of the internet to sell

and buy goods and employing IT practitioners (one score for each positive answer. Thus, the variable

the outsourcing of non-core activities may actually play a more important role Finally, there seems to be some (preliminary) evidence regarding the time structure of

EU KLEMS database when comparing the changes between ICT capital stock growth and TFP growth across the sample of EU member countries used in our analysis for the

The analysis based on the E-business Survey 2007 data allows identifying the driving forces of ICT and its impact on selected business dimensions.

Hardware infrastructure, in contrast, offer companies less potential to create a competitive advantage compared to software applications and skilled employees

Second, ICT usage has a positive impact on company performance, i e. firms that introduced ICT-enabled innovations were more likely to have experienced a sales growth

information system can help a passenger transport company like AISA to reduce its planning and decision times, making the

provide the company with detailed data analysis on the whole company activity 3. 4 Internal process integration 3. 4. 2 e-Integrated supply

3. 4. 1 Use of software systems for internal process integration E-business in the transport & logistics industry

public transport smart card are processed 3. 6. 2 e-ticketing: a commitment towards innovative retailing and ticket solutions

Integrated software management with GPS train control at Hupac, Switzerland Discussion of challenges and success of the application of an

and monitor stock levels, keep pace with demand and check the order shipment status 3. 5. 2 e-Integrated supply

3. 4. 1 Use of software systems for internal process integration Case study 11: Real-time passenger information system at

Trafikanten, Norway Trafikanten is the joint information provider for the two public transport authorities (PTA) in the Oslo region of Norway

information system providing travellers with reliable information on real-time departure times of public transport vehicles. Real-time vehicle departure information is calculated with the help of a

3. 4. 1 Use of software systems for internal process integration Case study 12: Improving public transport management

Public Administrations and final users Year of foundation: 1942 Turnover in last financial year (â: 28 â million

Centralised information system, RFID 5. 1. 1 Background and objectives The goal of this case study is to demonstrate an example of the adoption and usage of e

implementation aspects, like internet sales, web page, centralised information systems etc Some of the administration clients of AISA,

the main clients of AISA, require monthly statistics and data on passengers, sales figures, etc. for consolidation, settlement and result evaluation of services and

Without an automated and computerised information system it would be impossible to generate this type of operation data to satisfy these client demands.

AISA innovates to be prepared for these processes with suitable e-business solutions like the new centralised information system

An example of the computerisation of the different process is the ticketing system. The company buses now have onboard electronic ticketing generation and validation

machines and consolidated in the computers of the company, with a centralised analysis of the relevant information

The new centralised information system implemented by AISA enables the company to integrate and consolidate its different business centres

implementation of the centralised information system of AISA started with the introduction of computers in the year 2000.

In this year the company had four computers operating. The computerisation of the main business processes of the company started

in the year 2000 and now, in 2008 the company has more than 50 computers The big change in the computer adoption in the last has eight years has been the

computerisation of all the processes. This long and complex process has replaced previous manual processes with automated processes using computer systems and

applications. The computerisation of processes has represented a major operational change for the company This centralised information system started as an e-business system project in the third

quarter of 2007. The main objective was to integrate information flows of the different company facilities, including the offices, buses, lines and garages.

This should enable the company to speed up information processing, planning, reporting and daily operation control tasks.

The technical backbone of this centralised information system are two high E-business in the transport & logistics industry

capacity computer servers (from Hewlett packard) in the central company office. They are connected with all computers in centres with offices

and ticketing offices This way, AISA collects and aggregates data from its various facilities, for example bus

information form the ticket machines, ticket systems onboard the busses and ticket offices, and can then process

and analyse the data in real-time to support the management of its daily operations. The system has different application modules for

Data flows are integrated with the accounting analysis, planning and control systems of the company. The accounting information from

the different company centres are integrated in the central servers The company has designed this proprietary system in conjunction with its ICT provider

AISA uses a service provided by its telecom -munications provider (Telefonica) to run a company network (standard VPN †Virtual

Private Network. The systems can be expanded in the future with more modules or applications. Data are transmitted via regular broadband network connections (ADSL

with a download speed of 8mbit/s in the central offices and 3mbit/s in the rest of the

centres System applications have been created by different ICT providers. The main applications of the centralised information system are interconnected.

Some examples of important applications integrated in the system are vehicle operation and management accounting and payroll software

panning garage software for management A practical example of applications enabled by the company-wide integration of data

flows is a new timetable which manages the timetables of all individual workers and automatically links these data to the payroll application.

The system combines some features typical form systems like ERM and ERP. It enables AISA to improve the planning

and control of Operations Human resources Vehicles Services Cash management Accounting systems Reporting systems Ticketing systems (sales

This system consists of the implementation of RFID chips in the fuel tank area of the buses that to control the fuel consumption of the bus and opt to a professional

systems and Wifi implementation onboard the buses for data transfers in the garages However the main e-business priority is the accomplishment and finalisation of the

The centralised information system has had a positive impact on the company and its business In particular, reporting, planning

accurate data, which facilitates decision making in operational management. This time reduction also implies a cost optimisation due to the improved control of operations and

integrated (with the new software version operating The centralised information system has also a positive impact on data security.

It is now possible to make backup copies of all the relevant data from the central servers

avoiding duplicating task and minimising the risk of losing important data. The system allows eliminating existing duplicated processes and reducing errors in the information

process, reducing the costs of information processing for the company The system has had some implications for the company's office workers (about 50

longer in local mode), files have to be saved on the server and not in the local hard drive

The Telemat system of RFID chip for fuel subsidy has very positive impacts in the cost

challenges was actually the adoption process by the users. Once the information system was accepted internally and users were accustomed to work with it, the positive effects

became visible almost immediately. The information system led to reduced human errors in information processing, as former manual processes could be automated.

It also reduced the response times to internal and external changes that affect the company services and operations

The elimination of manual processes and duplications of work has improved greatly company operations, planning and decision making.

Websites: AISA (www. aisa-grupo. com E-business in the transport & logistics industry 127 5. 2 AIT, France

on the other hand to provide the company with detailed data analysis on the whole company activity This case study case demonstrates the benefits of such a solution and analyses the

*Information systems Franã§oise Arnaud, Director of Information Technology AIT 5. 2. 1 Background and objectives

Continuously training of its staff to keep abreast of new information technologies and logistics management Offering innovative solutions based on know-how, pro-activity and dynamism

Information technology is key to support AIT in this market positioning. According to Franã§oise Arnaud, Information technology Director at AIT, the main role of Information

Technology for the company is to automate business and data transmission processes to eliminate errors, to save time

and to allow AIT having visibility on the whole activity through the availability of complete data. Current ICT solutions implemented are a

company web site, a Sage software solution for the accounting, as well as a global transport management solution

AIT implemented a first transport and warehouse management solution in 2000. The solution developed by an external provider was composed of a core programme with

specific developments to match AITS specific needs. Over the years this solution became more and more difficult to manage due to the accumulation of specific developments

data on their traffic and activity from the current system in 2003, the solution provider

like the customer billing, purchasing, business operations and to provide detailed data analysis on the whole activity

Beginning of 2004 the Information technology Director and the General manager of AIT both leading the project, defined the functional specifications for the new solution.

The training deployed to the 32 users of the solution lasted two days and was performed

The solution that has been developed is composed modular software of the core Solulog solution and some specific developments to meet the needs of AIT.

been developed with VBA code on Access and uses a SQL database. The Solulog solution is hosted internally at AIT.

Data entry of a transport file: At the beginning of the transport process a specific transport file is created directly in the system including all information related to the

Depending on the data that is entered at the beginning, transport purchase orders are created automatically. This is possible through the interconnection of the system with the global e commerce shipping

platform INTTRA, allowing companies to automate the shipping instructions Edit the transport documents: According to the type of transportation, AIT does

Two specific interfaces where users enter with a login and passwords exist: one interface for the warehouse and another one for the transportation, logistics, commercial activities

and sent by fax to the involved partners (customer transport company, AIT internal If the merchandise is stored in the warehouse of AIT,

the elements of a future transport file (data directly usable if the customer accepts the

and takes into account the specific needs and feedback of the users The integrated design tool allows AIT to define tailored document formats which improves

The interconnection with the global e commerce shipping platform (INTTRA) has enabled AIT to automate the shipping instructions.

The most important benefit is achieved probably through the availability of detailed data of the activity allowing AIT today to have clear visibility on profitability of the different

and no data is available for the period before the solution implementation. There is no doubt that the solution

It is important to highlight that the adoption of the new solution by the different users

some users, the new solution added lots of value. This is the case for the operators, who

Another reason for the good user adoption of the solution might also be the fact that the

The maintenance of database is also an important point to consider when implementing such a solution.

unique database, which with the time grew and, crashed in the end. The new solution is composed of three databases.

There is one operating database, where the data for one year is stored to optimise the respond times of the system.

Another database contains all data elder than one year and a third database contains all information for the â€oeinfocentreâ€

allowing providing the Business figures and analysis. It is very important to consider the correct maintenance of the databases including cleaning the data,

extracting the data from the operating database to keep the response time of the system optimised

The outsourcing of the solution to a data-centre may represent a major advantage for SMES since the solution is managed by specialists in a controlled technical environment

Another point that AIT would like to improve in the future is the creation of Business processes together with the deployment of IT solutions.

AIT did not create any processes when implementing the system. A first step towards process creation was engaged in

Interview (s) with Franã§oise Arnaud, Director of Information technology AIT 05/02/08, Genas, France Websites

AIT (http://www. aitlogistique. com/info. htm SOLULOG (http://www. solulog. fr /E-business in the transport & logistics industry

Since the 1980s, with the introduction of the first computers in the ticket sales area, ALSA has been developing its current modern e-business and ICT systems.

the online e-ticketing system is integrated fully in the company, with complete Java internal support and external web interfacing for the e-ticket sales via Internet and

mobile phone The implemented new ICT and e-business systems have brought ALSA a lot of benefits and positive impacts, including the opening of new sales channels (mobile and internet

sales) which increase the customer satisfaction, intelligent bus seat management, cost advantages and increase in the global competitiveness of the company thanks to the

different e-business tools. One of the main systems developed and implemented in ALSA is the Resource Planning system that has optimized considerably the

Administration, final users and companies Year of foundation: 1728 Turnover in last financial year (â: 365 â million

The company introduced the first computers in the sales area in the 1980s. These computers were dedicated mainly to the ticket selling systems, the first

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 135 implementation of ICT technology in the company in this department.

ALSA started the ticket sales system via internet (based on a B2c platform The current Integrated Sales system of ALSA is designed now

and implemented in Java programming language, including an integrated operations platform that manages the base and intermediate layers of the system in order to control each of the different sales

channels. This enables ALSA to change only the final interface layer of the system to the

different sales channels when they add a new channel to sell the tickets (internet, mobile

the data and operations of the sales area The Integrated Sales system is in its majority an internal development of the IT

hardware and licences and â 200.000 to development. The technical department (IT department) in charge of the project,

profitable, and a proof of this is that ALSA is going to create the 4th generation website

including Web 2. 0 technologies, a content manager and external web features. The internet sales currently represent 20%of total ticket sales (final users and travel

agencies), and the mobile phone sales represent 1%of ticket sales One example of the advantages of the integrated sales system of ALSA is the integration

of all the relevant information of the sales process into one single system. For example one of the key benefits of having an online interlinked e-business sales system with these

and data for activity and service management payroll process accounting payments to transport service providers

onboard the vehicles and other like PDA for the bus traffic chiefs), database and analysis tools and it is designed to improve the planning and the optimisation of processes.

loaded automatically into the system onboard the vehicle via a Wifi system in the garage

A modern data warehouse, which is implemented with business objects to provide the necessary information for the integrated sales system and the resource

planning system mentioned above. This system delivers information to all the organisation parts and helps in the reporting

data warehouse to perform special analyses and prognosis. They also include the Balance Scorecard system and the daily management.

implementing smart card and other types of ITS in their vehicle fleet and SAE system Sistema de Ayuda a la Explotaciã n or Operations Support systems) which include

sensors onboard some of the vehicles or the use of integrated mobile data communications systems onboard the buses. Some of the high class buses (like the

Supra class coach) have implemented also free Wifi Internet connection service for the clients E-business in the transport & logistics industry

improve the user experience with the transport services (convenience, comfort and economy The resource planning system has helped ALSA to reduce costs of â 4-5 million

systems, such as the integrated data warehouse, the ITS (Intelligent Transport System and the fleet control system have contributed also to improving business processes which

-ment in real-time, intelligent sensors the onboard vehicles, Wifi bus communication systems or digital tachographs) have a double positive impact for the company, as they

like some final web interfaces have been outsourced, thus the company depends on the providers'response times (on average

involvement of the users, i e. the workers. The planning tool is adopted highly in the company, and it has a lot of users.

As the planning tool contains several possibilities and functions, it requires a trained and skilled worker to use it correctly.

are crucial to prepare the users for the new tools The resource planning system also represents one of the big challenges in the process of

The tools require the feedback from users, and the intermediate managers need a more professional profile to forecast different scenarios

Websites: ALSA, http://www. alsa. es E-business in the transport & logistics industry 139 5. 4 CEMAT (Italy

information technology (IT) systems. The goal was to increase the performance of CEMAT IT systems and to support new innovative IT solutions that improve the

end users faced during the adoption process Case study fact sheet Full name of the company: CEMAT

Information systems Case contact person (s: Marco Cipelletti, IT manager at CEMAT 5. 4. 1 Background and objectives

once a customer sends a transport order over the Web-based ordering service to CEMAT, the data is integrated directly into the internal CEMAT transport management

system. CEMAT sends a pre-filled â€oebill of lading†document to the customer and to the

data into the CEMAT transport management system and gives the signed paper to the customer (or his driver.

and data is rekeyed into the CEMAT transport management system It is necessary that both, the customer and CEMAT, store paper documents

Increased efficiency, due to the elimination of data duplication, the electronic management of the transport documents and the automatic delivery of documents

Higher speed in transmission of data to the customer Improved production mode in the terminals, with the elimination of manual

Sending a fax to communicate an e-mail address to CEMAT illustrates quite well the IT approach of a company.

representative panel of customers in the pilot phase. CEMAT has involved only its biggest customer in the pilot phase.

Website of Cemat, http://www. cemat. it /E-business in the transport & logistics industry 144

market and financial Data analysis of this data allows the company to take efficient decisions for the continuous modernisation of the railways.

Information systems (e-ticketing and e-reservation Case contact person (s: Dorina Mironescu, CFR Information technology Director

5. 5. 1 Background and objectives Ever since the liberalisation of the railway market in 1998, Romanian railway companies

process and to get relevant business and market data about the passenger railway activities 5. 5. 2 E-business activities

â€oexsellcentralseatsâ€) linked to more than 200 local servers that host the ticket sales system, as well as a statistics/reporting system (â€oexselldataâ€) and a data maintenance

warehouse (xsellwarehouse†For a nationwide system, a unitary hardware and standard software architecture has been chosen to offer long-term benefits, like improved technical support, technical

operating services and reduced TCO (Total Cost of Ownership. In this respect, the solution is based on Hewlett-packard hardware, Oracle RDBMS software and Practical

Automation thermal printers, verified for more than 7 years in real-time operation and being the architecture of an accepted system.

The operating system is Microsoft WINDOWS NT for PC€ s & PC Net Servers and HP-UX for RISC machines.

The solution has been implemented in over 245 railway stations where each selling point is equipped with a PC and a printer linked to the different systems

When a customer goes to a selling point to buy a ticket, the sales system sends the

inquiry (entered by a CFR employee into the computer) to the reservation system which checks if a seat is available.

If so, it blocks the seat and sends seat number and price to the sales system which stores these elements, together with information such as about

validated the technical solution (hardware and software) as well as the design and provided real data to determine the transaction volumes needed to operate such a

system From 2000 to 2004 a new version of the software solution was designed by the CFR

information technology team and was rolled out between 2005 and 2007 in more than 245 railways stations The costs of this project (not including the first pilot) were about 25 million euros, 20

million euros for the hardware including the services and 5 million euros for the application software and deployment

Future major developments that are foreseen are to open the system for the public on the

Web allowing customers to make an online reservation, to design home printed tickets as well as to equip train staff with mobile devices connected to the systems to sell and

print tickets in the train. These projects are planned to be achieved by mid 2008 Stakeholders of this project were the passenger railway company, the information

technology company of CFR, CFR Infrastructurä,(managing the infrastructure on the Romanian railway network) as well as the ministry of Romania.

Feroviarä managed the software development, the infrastructure setup and the deployment of the solution. The passenger railway company established a new

employees following the implementation of the solution contributed to this good user adoption The feedback from CFR employees and CFR customers about the solution is very

The lack of data available before its implementation as well as its recent deployment does not allow the company to quantify the benefits achieved so far but the

Thanks to the availability of detailed data about destinations, passenger categories, distance choices etc. delivered by the system,

data warehouse, the company is now able to estimate the flow of passengers, better plan its trains and better order routes from the infrastructure company

like the deployment of a Web service for ticket reservation and selling, that can be connected to international travel agencies

Website of CFR CÄ lä tori: www. cfr. ro/calatori/engleza/index eng. html E-business in the transport & logistics industry

149 5. 6 Fret SNCF (France Abstract Fret SNCF, the second largest rail-freight carrier in Europe,

aims to provide customer services over the Internet for a simpler, faster and more reliable exchange of information with the customer

customers anytime and in a convenient way through a Web interface the possibility to get

as well as hardware and software for the four deployed e -services. Maintenance cost for the portal is about 11000 Euros per month

A big implementation challenge was to deal with the heterogeneous information systems infrastructure at Fret SNCF,

information systems. The â€oeclic Services Fret SNCF€ portal was developed using PHP and Dot net languages. Security is guaranteed via SSL encryption of information and via a

dedicated login and password for each user SNCF Fret customers can now log on to a Web platform that allows them to access the

four different services that carry the following functionalities â€oecommande@RESAFRET€ enables the customer to directly order transport

services on the internet. Each customer possesses a personalised online catalogue that details the respective transport terms negotiated.

This service allows an easy data entry for the customer and a better order planning and

management for Fret SNCF â€oeinfo@RESAFRET€, allows to follow up orders in real-time and alerts customers

and SNCF Fret if there are transport difficulties â€oee-LV€, manages and transfers transport documentation â€oeinfo Factureâ€, handles all elements related to invoicing

The web platform communicates with the internal SNCF information systems for the ordering and invoicing processes.

management system (SAP), the data is sent to the Web platform where it is available to

enters the transport order directly on the Web interface. The Web platform automatically sends the data to the internal order management system.

The ordering process is composed of a couple of events like reservation of resources, departure of wagons

delivery, incident etc. which are processed again automatically. The order management platform communicates data for each transport phase to the Web platform allowing the

customer to follow up on the order One weakness of the e-services solution is that the information provided to customers is

needed to be adapted by deploying processes that allow the improvement of data quality and that are adapted to the necessary information provided through the e-services

a driving force for improving data entry quality Today, the e-services portal is operational and the project team is working on the future

and publish the data on the website 5. 6. 3 Impact The e-services solution affects the whole company and its working processes:

it requires a major transformation of processes and of working culture Most importantly, quality of information is key

information used by the information system is key for the quality of the service delivered A company investing in such a system should analyse precisely the different data

creation processes and the quality of data produced. If data quality is adapted not to the

level required, the processes should be adapted, the employees trained and the quality of information improved

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 153 The final key point is to consider the sales channel of e-services when planning such a

Rannoux, responsible for e-services, 24/07/07 and 15/09/07 by phone Company internal newsletters and brochures

Website of Fret SNCF, http://fret. sncf. com E-business in the transport & logistics industry

solution is integrated with other information systems allowing therefore automatically integrating and exchanging information with customers and transporters.

and updated data, improved inventory management thanks to the visibility of exact stock variations and logistics and in a greater ability to serve the

personnel handling picking orders through automated Radio frequency based picking or voice picking and reduction of personnel handling shipping documentation and

Data accuracy and inventory accuracy both improve. Mistakes are pushed to an absolute minimum. Deliveries are timely

With system-directed operations available to the users supervisory intervention is held to a minimum. Much of the decision making

user profile and location within the facility. Managers have more time to make higher level decisions

tracking, yard management, automated data collection, automated material handling and equipment management. The resulting increase in process efficiency has translated into

20/07/07, per phone Company annual report 2006 Website of Geodis: www. geodis. com E-business in the transport & logistics industry

159 5. 8 Hupac (Switzerland Abstract Hupac is combined leader in transport across The swiss Alps and number two in

about their trains, Hupac has implemented an innovative information technology solution that manages transport information in real time and coordinates all phases

Aldo Croci, Hupac Information technology Director 5. 8. 1 Background and objectives The strategy of the Hupac Group has remained fundamentally unchanged for decades.

Information technology solutions are part of Hupac†s strategy and Hupac ensures the efficient exchange of data with clients, terminals, service providers and other operators

through several information technology tools. â€oecesar†is an Information technology system for combined transport that enables customers to make reservations, track and

trace goods, and verify traffic conditions. â€oee-booking†is a system which puts the customer†s information system in contact with the Hupac system through standard XML

technology, offering considerable advantages in terms of time, security, and operational efficiency. â€oee-billing†is a service allowing the customer to receive,

integrated software that manages transport data in real time, coordinating all phases of intermodal traffic. â€oegoal†is connected to â€oee-trainâ€, an innovative GPS train control

the information systems of each railway company. This proved to be extremely difficult as these are very heterogeneous systems.

ever enlarging network has led to the creation of an integrated software management system with GPS train control

taken 8 months most of it being the software implementation, followed by a 4-months test

The overall cost for the solution including software, hardware and implementation were approximately 100.000 Euros.

The cost for one GPS unit is about 1200 euros and 60 units have been deployed so far.

hardware and software) and intelligence traffic systems. This firm was in charge of the integration and implementation of the system,

Hupac needed to find a solution that was independent from the information systems of railway companies and which could run in all countries.

Global Oriented Application for Logistics) is integrated an software designed by Hupac that coordinates intermodal transport from booking to billing.

concerning the automatic integration within â€oegoal†of data originating from external systems such as clients, terminals and third party operators has been developed further

and process data coming from peripheral terminals which do not use â€oegoalâ€. The second part of the solution is â€oee-trainâ€, a new satellite-based train monitoring

information is integrated then automatically within the Goal software, providing a constantly updated situation of the progression of each train.

and a GSM (Global System for Mobile communication card that sends the information to the Goal system managing the information sent to and

The server where the Goal software is stored at is connected fully to the Hupac central system.

Despite the fact that Hupac already has advanced internal information technology solutions in place, the impact of this solution on the employees previously in charge of

searching information on the different railway information systems was significant. They completely changed their jobs as this task was required no longer.

information systems and can gather information on their trains. Whatever railway they use, and in whatever country,

telecommunication costs generated by the units are very high. At the moment, the solution runs with a Swiss communication card

online the whole time and the user can know where the train is at any time.

advantage with GPRS is that you are priced on the data volume and therefore this is less

and roaming costs with the telecom operator in order to address this cost issue 5. 8. 4 Lessons learned

An RFID solution would not have been a possible choice for Hupac. For an RFID solution the infrastructure must be put in place at the terminals to read the codes.

Since Hupac only owns 40%of the terminals that it uses, the coverage of the solution would not

Telephone interview with Aldo Croci, Information technology Director at Hupac 26/07/07 Company annual report and brochures

Websites: Hupac (www. hupac. ch E-business in the transport & logistics industry 164 5. 9 N c. Cammack &son, United kingdom

and monitor stock levels, keep pace with demand and check the order shipment status. Other effects acquired over the years

a specific Information technology (IT) solution called †Truck Businessâ€. This solution designed by a company called Techwire in close cooperation with the Cammack Senior

collecting the different jobs sent by fax from the customers, putting them together into a

data into the computer An IT solution, implemented in 1990 for managing accounts, invoices, sales and

software The project commenced with a 6-months analysis phase for defining the application needs, followed by a 6-months development phase for the application.

The software developed is running on a WINDOWS NT 2000 server that is managed in house. 15

terminals are connected to the system The most important technical challenge was to develop a standard solution based on

customer over the Web or entered into the system by the Cammack employee), putting them into a diary and allow the traffic planner to easily put the jobs together on the screen

into a load. The system should automatically take into account the different factors like truck space and destinations

N c. Cammack & Son†s core activity. The third requirement was to give customers online

Son†s customers to view their own stock records, print reports, plus monitor incoming and

The sales and nominal ledger data is transferred from the †Truck Business†solution by Transaction Broker automatically at the press of a button.

which disables users from carrying out work for customers who have a bad credit record 5. 9. 3 Impact

All users of †Truck Business†can see the status of jobs, loads trucks at any time allowing better communication and discussion for improving

The customer can access this information on the Web interface 5. 9. 4 Lessons learned

core markets trough improving operational performance while keeping the number of employees constant. Being able to monitor the costs of each truck

Websites: Cammack (www. cammack. co. uk E-business in the transport & logistics industry 171 5. 10 Cargo tracing at Saima Avandero, Italy

solution in 2002 to allow their customers to follow up their transport activities on a Web

collection, storage and distribution of products supported by state of art computing technology and robotics.

Information technology (IT) plays an important role in the international freight-forwarding marketplace where it is critical to improve the efficiency of operational processes and

price competitive transport serviceâ€, recognises Mr Scotti, Information technology Director at Saima Avandero. †Today we still have to provide a good service but at the

transport over a Web interface to customers 5. 10.2 E-business activities The track and trace project, started in 2002,

Avandero†s information technology department. After a short analysis phase for the track and trace solution, a team of three employees of the IT department developed and

The main requirement for the solution was to give customers access to a database where

integrate-able with the existing information systems at Saima Avandero The budget for the track and trace solution includes the cost for three full time employees

on the IBM tool â€oewebsphereâ€. It is running on the company†s main server (IBM AS 400

Security requirements include user identification and password The typical process is as follows: when a shipment is produced,

it is assigned to the different suppliers. The supplier contacts are entered into the database. Suppliers are

informed of their assignment. This is managed either directly through the system or through any other communication means like e-mail,

fax or phone in case the supplier is not directly connected to the Saima Avandero database.

The supplier will then confirm the transport order (through the system or other communication tools.

channels and entered manually into the database. The customer can consult this information via the Web interface

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 173 The main future developments planned is the connection of this solution to the ABX

system connecting all local databases to the ABX central database. Saima Avandero will have to analyse the situation again

in order to get the data from the suppliers according to the requirements defined by ABX group.

Saima Avandero to automatically integrate data received into the database The solution has been operational for over 5 years

in place and integrated into the supplier†s information system. That means that the supplier has direct access to the solution interface.

be collected manually by Saima Avandero through channels including e-mail, fax, and telephone. Once the information is collected,

a Saima Avandero employee has to enter it into the central system. This creates a lot of additional work.

The quality of data received from the suppliers is an important issue for Saima Avandero

Sometimes the quality of data is poor and sometimes data is not even available at all

Since Saima Avandero works with a multitude of small suppliers (sometimes up to five suppliers for one single transport) it is very difficult to get them engaged to provide the

requested data (either through the common system or in any other way The biggest issue faced by Saima Avandero,

is to provide a homogenous level of data quality to the customers. For some transport, the quality of data is very good while for

others it is inexistent Another important issue is the additional work generated by the solution.

work generated by the data collection from suppliers and entry into the system is costly

whom the company puts many efforts in place to maintain the data quality at a high level

summarised in additional manual work to comply with the poor quality of data generated by the overall solution as well as poor customer satisfaction.

Solutions that are aimed at providing data to customers encounter huge issues if the quality of information cannot be guaranteed in cases where a company depends on a

third party to provide the data it is very important to get a clear commitment of this third

from the supplier†s mobile phone and directly integrating it into Saima Avandero†s database. Even if this solution should improve the current situation by reducing the

manual data entry of information provided, it is still fully dependant on the different suppliers. The best would probably be to deploy a solution that works independently on

the different suppliers, either through location positioning systems or through RFID technologies. Saima will investigate those solutions in the future

5. 10.5 References Research for this case study was conducted by Caren Hochheimer, Altran, on behalf of the Sectoral E-business Watch.

Interview with Mr Scotti, Information technology director at Saima Avandero 19/02/08 Websites: Saima Avandero (www. Saimaavandero. it

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 175 5. 11 Trafikanten, Norway Abstract Trafikanten is the joint information provider for the two public transport authorities (PTA

In 2005, Trafikanten deployed an innovative real-time passenger information system providing travellers with reliable information on real-time departure times of public

signs at the stops or provided through different channels like the Internet and mobile channels.

*Information systems 5. 11.1 Background and objectives Trafikanten, founded in 1986, is the joint information provider for the two public transport

information service provider due to the fact that users can compare different transportation modes on Trafikantens Website

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is key for Trafikantens activities. The efficiency of the company is fully dependant on the development of those solutions.

increasing number of telephone customers In 1992 Trafikanten put the first travel planner in place did they develop it?.

%In 1997 the travel planner was launched on the Internet for public use; www. trafikanten. no

and an SMS and WAP travel planner service The objective of the real-time information project is to provide travellers with the accurate

vehicle arrival and departure time information via the Internet, mobile channels and through signs available at the stops

transport vehicles to the public over different channels including the Internet, mobile channels and signs at stops.

It should be based on timetable data from the existing travel planner tool. Another important requirement was that the suppliers could meet time and

1050 vehicles with computers, GPS systems and meter measuring systems 350 stops with signs 12 depots with dispatch systems to upload

and download data The rollout is still ongoing and 90%of targeted vehicles are equipped with the solution

technical groups, training groups, data capture/testing groups, evaluation groups. Once a specific task for which the group was set up was finished the group was dissolved and

punctuality of all targeted transport modes through the internet, mobile channels and signs to the public.

Passengers can now conveniently access the website from their home or office and conveniently gain information about the real departure times they

Passenger information data can be accessed using a dialogue-oriented user menu on a WAP-compatible mobile phone (Wireless Application

Protocol Another important benefit results from the traffic signal priority system allowing to improve the efficiency of priority (green light) given to the vehicles.

%Another important benefit results from the planning capabilities given through the data analysis provided by the system.

The data administration and evaluation system is used for the evaluation and report generation of data recorded during operations.

The operators are able to gain an overview of complex daily activities, evaluate these and

data is of great interest for Trafikanten and allows them to provide detailed reporting on

Websites: Trafikanten (www. trafikanten. no E-business in the transport & logistics industry 180 5. 12 Värmlandstrafik AB, Sweden

Information systems Case contact: Markus Bergman IT director at Värmlandstrafik AB 5. 12.1 Background and objectives

improving customer services and customer communication through Web based and mobile information services for passengers (Travel planner, Timetables etc

The FRIDA solution is based on software, entirely developed by Nordic Port. It is a web

based system, with a central database hosted by Nordic Port. The different users get an

address and login and can access the solution via the Internet. The region pays a

monthly fee (about 5000 crones. Developments to match specific requirements are done by Nordic Port and are paid by the region

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 182 Nordic port is in charge of the maintenance and support of the solution and 2 employees

is available for the PTA through a Web interface. Specific information such as environmental pollution is measured as well

charge of filling the data at each transport company working for the PTA. They enter the

information over the Web interface, an XML file is sent to the system and FRIDA is fed

automatically with the data. Every 6 months the operators send the data about miles ran

and fuel used for each vehicle. The system calculates the pollution generated. Each time an operator buys a new vehicle the data is entered into the system.

The information is stored centrally in the system and organising authorities have full access to the

via mobile devices (through offline data synchronisation), to ease the process of data collection. Värmlandstrafik checks the vehicles on a regular basis to make sure that they

handheld PC and directly enters the information about the vehicle in the mobile device Once the bus check is finished,

the handheld PC is connected to the PC at the office and the data directly fed into the system

The solution allows today counting any vehicle that runs in Sweden whatever kind of vehicle is used:

a user society was formed,@FRIDA, which now manages the development of the system. Members of the group jointly decide about new

SLTF has the role as administrator of the user society@FRIDA FRIDA is used by the greater part of the organising authorities in Sweden today and the

user society@FRIDA has prepared a standard for vehicle information, which is being used in a way that makes it possible for SLTF to compile national data about the vehicles

concerning environmental discharges, increased accessibility for disabled persons etc The total costs of the solution reach today about 3 million Swedish crones, a budget that

About 100 users are connected per region to the system. Since all regions use the system in Sweden comparisons between

â€oeanomalies†on the user interface. This allows the region to directly get in contact with the operator.

sent to Värmlandstrafik by mail and fax In order to plan the traffic and get figures on the bus operation,

the solution as well as in depth user involvement during the whole development of the system The FRIDA tool is very flexible and modular allowing being extended to match the

This is why a specific user group has been set up for FRIDA called@FRIDA, composed E-business in the transport & logistics industry

The data provided by FRIDA supports the Swedish PTAS today in achieving an important objective which is the reduction of the pollution generated by the public transport.

Websites Värmlandstrafik (http://www. kollplatsen. com/index. html Nordic Port (http://web. port. se

/E-business in the transport & logistics industry 185 6 Conclusions: outlook and policy implications Due to the high turnover and number of jobs in the European TLS industry and its

interrelation with almost all other European economy sectors, any improvements to the competitiveness and effectiveness of European transport and logistics enterprises will

have a positive impact on other industries and, undoubtedly, will also have an impact on

Nearly all TLS companies (97%)which use computers in the TLS sector are connected to Internet.

A tendency of the firms to have a higher broadband connection is observed also. One third of the firms have a bandwidth connection of more

The TLS sector is characterised by a pronounced digital divide between small and large companies. In general, the ICT systems of large companies

There is still only a very limited use of RFID technologies in the TLS industry. Only 2

*Data weighted by employment("firms representing â€%of employment in the sector expect that ICT will have

Radio frequency identification (RFID) in Europe: steps towards a policy framework; E-business Watch 2007 study on RFID adoption and

implications; EPCGLOBAL: industry-driven standards for the Electronic Product Code EPC) to support the use of RFID

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 189 e-Skills for Europe: Towards 2010 and Beyond (2004;

Technical Committee 278 (2007) Road Transport and Traffic Telematics Towards an RFID Policy for Europe (2007), RFID in Transport and Logistics, RFID

Consultation; COM (2007) 96 final: Radio frequency identification (RFID) in Europe: steps towards a policy framework. Realising the potential of RFID

technology, this report addressed a number of interrelated issues pertaining to security and privacy, governance, radio spectrum and standards and called for an

RFID Stakeholder Group to provide an open platform allowing a dialogue between consumer organisations, market actors,

and national and European authorities Those studies, reports and working groups, have developed a great number of policy

recommendations. Furthermore, some of those groups are working hard to realize the suggested actions derived from those policies.

 Improve dialogue and cooperation with software providers  Encourage initiatives for networking and cooperation

SMES€ ICT requirements are that they support their core business, work well, are user -E-business in the transport & logistics industry

191 friendly, easy to upgrade and at as low a cost as possible. In this case, financial support

"The use of SCM software is also very limited among smaller companies (6%).Against this background, mechanisms to

equipment and the access to the internet are limited often to the owner and a few key

While large dominant organisations can implement information systems using their own proprietary solutions, it is important to ensure that the requirements of small firms are

http://cordis. europa. eu/fp7/home. html, respectively 127 European commission (2008: â€oethink Small Firstâ€. A â€oesmall Business Act†for Europe

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Does Information technology Lead to Smaller Firms? Management Science, Vol. 40, No. 12, pp. 1628-1644

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23-48 Brynjolfsson, E. and Yang, S. 1999. The Intangible Costs and Benefits of Computer Investments

Evidence from the Financial Markets. Atlanta, Georgia: Proceedings of the International Conference on Information systems Brynjolfsson, E.,Mcafee, A.,Sorell, M. and Zhu, F. 2006.

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Cairncross, F. 1997) The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change our Lives

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Journal of Management Information systems 16 (4), pp. 225-261 Clayton, T. and Waldron, K. 2003.

A Computer programme for Stochastic Frontier Production and Cost Function Estimation, Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis, University

Radio frequency identification (RFID) in Europe: steps towards a policy framework Commonwealth of australia (2001. From Sheep†s Back to Cyberspace:

The Dynamo and the Computer: An Historical Perspective on the Modern Productivity Paradox, American Economic Review, Vol. 80 (2), 355-61

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Panel of Countries, in: The Review of Economics and Statistics, February 2004,86 (1), 327†344

E-Logistics, Free Essays, Cliff Notes and Term Paper Database. Available at http://www. essays. cc/free essays/b2/utv192. shtml

Benchmarking Efficiency of Telecommunication Industries in the US and Major European Countries A Stochastic Possibility Frontiers Approach in:

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http://ec. europa. eu/transport/maritime/doc/maritime transport policy en. pdf European commission (2007) Rail Transport and Interoperability.

â€oeis Open source Gaining Adoption In Europe? †http://www. forrester. com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0, 7211,38061, 00. html

E-business in the transport & logistics industry 198 Free Encyclopaedia of E-commerce (2007: E-Procurement-Pros and Cons

http://ecommerce. hostip. info/pages/421/E-Procurement-PROS-CONS. html Fret SNCF, http://fret. sncf. com

International Productivity Monitor, No. 9, pp. 37-51 Gomes, J. B.,Park, S. H. 1997.

The Global Internet Economy Helpman, E. and Trajtenberg, M. 1998a. A time to sow and a time to reap:

Information technology and Firm Boundaries Evidence From Panel Data, Information systems Research, Volume 10, Issue 2, 134-149

Hossain, L, . and Wigand, R. T. 2003). Understanding virtual collaboration through structuration Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Knowledge management, 475-484;

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The impact of information technology on logistics, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 21 (5), 32-7

Joint Information systems Committee (JISC),(2006) Open source Software briefing paper http://www. jisc. ac. uk/publications/publications/pub ossbp. aspx

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Does Information technology Really Lead to Smaller Firms A Research Note on the Development of a Strategic Firm Size Hypothesis

The Sectoral E-business Watch collects data relating to the use of ICT and e-business in

computer-aided telephone interview (CATI) technology. The overall survey was divided into four separate projects (each using a separate questionnaire) focussing on different

3 RFID adoption  Manufacturing sectors  Retail  Transport services  Hospitals 434 4 Intellectual Property rights in ICT SMES

 Software publishing 683 Questionnaire The questionnaires for Projects 1 and 2 contained about 70 questions which were

ICT Infrastructure and E-business software systems B: Automated data exchange (Project 1)/ E-business with customers and suppliers

Project 2 C: e-Standards and interoperability issues (Project 1 D: Innovation activity of the company

substituted by electronic data exchanges. Some questions were filtered, such as follow -up questions dependent on previous answers,

the project website (www. ebusiness-watch. org/about/methodology. htm Population As in 2005 and 2006, the survey considered only companies that used computers.

For the first time, a cut off was introduced with regard to company size. When surveying the manufacturing sector in Project 1,

The highest level of the population was the set of all computer-using enterprises (and, in

shows that computer use can be expected to reach 99%or more among medium-sized and large firms across all sectors

computers 761 Project 2 †Retail and transport 2. 1 Retail 52 1, 151 2. 2 Transport services

use computers 1, 097 Sampling frame and method For each sector, the sample was drawn randomly from companies within the respective

data collection and reporting focus on the enterprise, defined as a business organisation (legal unit) with one or more

In a voluntary telephone survey, in order to achieve the targeted interview totals, it is always necessary to contact more companies than the number

unobtainable telephone numbers. Exhibit A1-6 shows the completion rate by country completed interviews as percentage of contacts made) and reasons for non-completion

telephone-or paper-based Exhibit A1-6: Interview contact protocol, completion rates and non-response reasons

1. 1 Telephone number not valid 541 31 53 299 645 38 611 1811 1. 2 Not a company (e g. private household) 82 209 6 36 327 2 57 431

1. 3 Fax machine/modem 19 0 72 9 300 33 69 389 1. 4 Quota completed à address not used 973 2018 1531 101 2492 84 1087 193

1. 8 Company does not use computers 35 75 32 76 35 5 110 398

2. 1 Nobody picks up phone 65 462 1061 0 440 147 112 2280 2. 2 Line busy, engaged 0 0 37 0 54 479 82 99

Ipsos, which can be downloaded from the E-business Watch website at www. ebusiness -watch. org/about/methodology. htm

Statistics vary in their accuracy, depending on the kind of data and sources. A 'confidence interval'is a measure that helps to assess the accuracy that can be expected

from data. The confidence interval is estimated the range of values on a certain level of significance. Confidence intervals for estimates of a population fraction (percentages

130 In the tables of this report, data are presented normally in both ways, except for data by size

-bands. These are shown in%of firms within a size-band, where employment-weighting is implicit

To ensure data comparability, only interviews from these countries are included in the aggregated"total"values

) Confidence intervals for employment-weighted data are highest for the steel industry, due to the small number of observations and because this sector†s structure

makes it more sensitive to data weighting (i e. large firms dominate in a comparatively small population.

Employment-weighted data for this industry therefore have lower statistical accuracy than for the other sectors

For this analysis a panel-data approach was used because of the low number of countries sampled.

pooling industry and country data. Further trends can be drawn from the stochastic production possibility frontier model although a complete analysis is beyond the scope of

-country data panel with a common stochastic production possibility frontier 0 1 ln()ln for 1,,

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