An intra- and inter-industry analysis of e-business effectiveness

Electronic business (EB) on the Internet has been promoted as a revolutionary technology that will transform the way we do business. This paper presents an intra- and inter-industry financial performance (FP) analysis of three industries: retail (R), consumer products (CP), and food beverages and tobacco (FBT). Financial statements of 165 companies selected from these three industries extending over a period of 10 years were reviewed to determine whether the EB activities have any significant impact on their FP, and whether this impact varied across industries. This comparative examination indicated that the EB companies did better than their non-EB counterparts in the post-EB period and the FBT industrial sector performed better than the R and CP sectors.