79% of European directors say no barrier to collaboration

Most European directors (79%) do not perceive technology as the principal barrier to the creation of electronic relationships with customers and suppliers. And 68% of them expect to increase spending on collaborative projects of one kind or another during the next 12 months. These are key findings from research conducted independently for enterprise software vendor JD Edwards among 100 finance, purchasing, logistics and operations directors from across the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands: Obstacles cited in the path to e-collaboration were company issues (26%) and customer attitudes to e-business (21%). But in the UK specifically, 42% of directors surveyed cited internal company issues as a major hurdle to electronic interaction with customers and suppliers – way more than the figures for the rest of Europe, although the sample size is not large. Surprisingly, just 14% of European managing directors or finance directors surveyed list security as a major obstacle to collaboration, the same number believe there to be no hurdles. “One of the remarkable findings of the JD Edwards study,” says Jyoti Banerjee, an independent analyst, “is that technology is not perceived to be a major barrier to building collaboration between Europe’s enterprises. The problems are more likely to be that of mindset and culture.” As for plans for electronic and collaborative projects, JDE’s survey finds two thirds of European directors planning to increase e-business related spending over the next twelve months. 21% of respondents expect an increase of more than 10% and 47% anticipate a slight increase in spending. Holland, Germany and Spain have the most ambitious plans, and by sector, manufacturing and utilities expect to increase spending most aggressively.