Will the internet keep the U.K competitive in a world market, in terms of industry?
Recently there has been emphasis for electronic business. Judging by IBM's recent advertising campaign you would be forgiven for thinking that launching a company website leads to instant profits. IBM 's portrayal of a grandmother taking her olive oil business from rural Greece into global markets neatly demonstrates the potential of the internet for huge exposure and trade without the barriers of geography and at a lower cost. Unlocking this potential for any business in the U.K and elsewhere is no easy matter. Although several large firms in the U.K are now making real impact through e-commerce, although examples of profit's being made in small and medium (SME) sized business's are few and far between.
Even though the effects of the internet on U.K's industry can only be predicted at this early stage, there have been incentives (rewards) offered to several SMEs generating business with their websites by the government. Firms with no more then 250 employees where asked to show how they had used e-commerce to increase efficiency or to boost their sales. The average investment that created a profit among the ten regional winners was around 20000 pounds with the cheapest being 10000 pounds, all the companies testified to the need for expert help.

Such expense results from the need to have an aesthetically pleasing website which offers in depth analysis whilst maintaining a user friendly aspect. The site must encourage people to explore and revisit and its presence on the internet needs to be developed, which generally requires the advice of a specialist.

At present time in the U.K the internet is used mainly for business to business activity with less emphasis on customer intervention. One of the main reasons for this is the transport costs, a business will normally order batch which would make it worth while were as customers only demand 1 or 2 goods. The idea of supplying customers with intangible goods, such as music, computer games/ programmes, software upgrades etc. is becoming increasingly more popular.

A telephone poll carried out across Britain based on 4000 calls found that while 39% of internet users have bought clothes by mail, only 13% would be willing to buy clothes on-line and only 2% have actually done so. 70% had never bought anything on-line - many assumptions can be drawn from these statistics i.e. the British don't trust the security aspect or the aspect of depending on delivery without any one to one contact. These connotations of the internet could lead to the U.K being left behind on the business to customer aspect, but there still is possible scope for business to business activity.

If you want to accept credit card payments on your site, you have two basic options; the first is to purchase your own, secure web server, which will probably involve employing a technical expert to set up and maintain the system. The second is to use a fulfilment system provided by a third-party - many internet servers offer fulfilment services, processing your transaction for a percentage cut or flat rate, while taking responsibility for the security of customer data. This method is preferred as it reduces pressure on the business and lets them concentrate on fulfilling demand.

Overall, it is important to keep the issue of security in prospective. Statistics which I recovered from the internet suggested that the U....