Driving Forces for E-Commerce
HITECH firms again were notably more affected by Internet technologies than other types of firms. All categories of strategic forces arising from e-commerce appeared to have proportionately greater influence on the actions of HITECH firms (Figure 3). The most important driving forces were industry changes and trends, opportunities for growth and the need to keep up with competition. The threat posed by larger competitors was also highly ranked. There appeared little significant difference again between the SER and MFG firms, however the SER firms ranked six out of nine strategic forces slightly higher than their MFG counterparts.