Top bosses failing to embrace ebusiness

Only one in a hundred CEOs think ebusiness is currently critical to the success of their business, according to a survey by management consultants AT Kearney.

The survey, which looked at top executives' attitudes towards technology, also found that only one in 20 CEOs interviewed think ebusiness will become critical in three years' time.

The survey quizzed 251 bosses from Asia, Europe, South America and the US with over two thirds of respondents from companies worth more than $2bn. It also revealed that only four per cent of CEOs think of ebusiness as their company's main challenge and 43 per cent said ebusiness has not changed the way they work.

Tom Wills-Sandford, director of the UK's Federation for the Electronics Industry (FEI), said: "I think it amazing that only one per cent of CEOs see ebusiness as a critical success factor, I would have thought it was in the top five of every CEOs' agenda. We're obviously not getting the message through to them, and we need to think about that."

The FEI is part of the UK's Alliance for Electronic Business, and campaigns for the growth of ecommerce.

Wills-Sandford added that CEOs who underestimate the importance of ecommerce will be caught napping. "Ebusiness has or will change all their businesses, and if it is in the future it's not far away, and they should be preparing for it right now."

The British Chambers of Commerce said the survey was very worrying, as it was vital old economy companies embrace ecommerce. A spokesman said: "The perception is that ecommerce is risky and difficult, which is reflected in this survey, but the companies here will have to change."

Despite the nature of the findings, AT Kearney played down the results. A spokesman said that while it was interesting that four out of ten CEOs say they haven't changed their business, the results belied the high priority many give technology. "Increasingly CEOs see technology and business strategies as one and the same thing, so technology on its own is not the overriding worry - technology problems gets embedded in other issues."