Title: An empirical investigation of the economic payoffs of e-business and CRM innovations

Authors: Namchul Shin

Addresses: Information Systems Department, School of Computer Science and Information Systems, Pace University, New York, USA

Abstract: While the question of the benefits of e-business initiatives has been an issue in both the academic and business worlds, there has been little empirical research on the value created from such initiatives. Using Information Week|s annual data set of innovative IT users, this study empirically examines the contribution of e-business initiatives to firm performance, measured by gross margin, revenue per employee, ROA, and ROE. The measure of e-business initiatives is constructed by combining e-business and CRM innovations. Data are analysed for the full sample and for both the manufacturing and service industry sectors for the 2 years of 1999 and 2000. The results show that e-business and CRM innovations contribute to firm performance significantly. The results indicate that when firms deploy e-business technologies and practices early and creatively, namely when their e-business initiatives are innovative, they can generate significant economic returns.

Keywords: innovative users of IT; e-business initiatives; e-business innovation; CRM innovation; customer relationship management; firm performance; electronic business; performance evaluation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEB.2004.005638

International Journal of Electronic Business, 2004 Vol.2 No.4, pp.351 - 365

Published online: 08 Nov 2004 *

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