Sunday, April 13, 2008

More Than 50% of U.S. Companies Want to Go Virtual in the Next Five Years

An increasingly large number of American companies are considering taking their business completely virtual in five years. A survey of C-level executives at U.S. companies reveals that more than half of these executives (53.4 percent) said they want to shift to a completely virtual company in the next five years.

Moreover, 80.8 percent of the executives said they were familiar with the advantages of e-commerce, and 30.1 percent said that if their business could afford the cost, they would be ready to go virtual right now. The survey was conducted by TIE Commerce, Inc., a provider of Business-to-Business eCommerce software, and The Mishra Group, a Waltham, Mass.-based marketing and public relations firm.

Given the major advancements in electronic business collaboration, it is now possible for a company’s internal operations, processes, and applications to remain current and connected with external trading partners. With each passing day, up-to-date, accurate company, customer and vendor information plays a greater role in the way they conduct business. Consumers demand instant results, and with a dedicated electronic framework, a business can boost sales, improve supply chain integration and exceed customers’ expectations, says TIE.

The survey also found that 83.6 percent of respondents cite their comfort level with technology as being a major factor in their willingness to go to a completely virtual business. According to TIE, major advancements in technologies such as Software as a Service (SaaS) alleviate the pressure of in-house software management, in turn making the transition to virtual business that much more obtainable.

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