UK businesses falling behind in tech spread

UK businesses are falling behind Scandinavian countries in terms of deploying technology, a report from the European Commission has found.

The ebusinesses readiness league studied how firms within European Union countries fared in both adoption and use of ICTs.

Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium and Germany topped the league for technology adoption while Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands made the top five for using such technologies in enterprises.

The EC report puts the dominance of Northern European countries in the leagues down to the result of "proactive policy implementation and [the] presence of a solid IT infrastructure".

The UK came in 10th for adoption of ebusiness but seventh for its use.

New entrants to the Union such as Bulgaria, Latvia and Slovakia populated the bottom of the league.

"These countries, all at the developing stage of their ebusiness environment, suffer from the existence of barriers, costs and infrastructure problems," the report said.

The key ICTs the EC used to judge the spread of ebusiness ranged from having an internet connection to employing a LAN and extranet.

The EC found that the number of businesses using the more basic IT tools - such as owning a PC - has remained static since the last report a year ago at around 52 per cent.

The number of enterprises who now report having their own website has risen by 60 per cent between the EC's 2004 and 2005 studies, now standing at 63 per cent. However, most European businesses use their website as a 'shop window' to give would-be customers a glimpse at their products or services. Only 28 per cent use their homepages to offer online shopping facilities.