Factors affecting the success of business‐to‐business international Internet marketing (B‐to‐B IIM): an empirical study of UK companies
| Date | 01 January 2004 |
| Pages | 16-30 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570410514061 |
| Published date | 01 January 2004 |
| Author | Riyad Eid,Myfanwy Trueman |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Factors affecting
the success of
business-to-business
international Internet
marketing (B-to-B IIM):
an empirical study of UK
companies
Riyad Eid and
Myfanwy Trueman
Introduction
In recent years business-to-business
international Internet marketing (B-to-B IIM)
has received widespread attention. Avlonitis
and Karayanni (2000), Duffy and Dale (2002),
Hamill and Gregory (1997), Hoffman et al.
(1999), Porter (2001) and Quelch and Klien
(1996) conducted in-depth studies to
understand those factors that are needed to
enhance B-to-B IIM implementation. They
conclude that organisations need to understand
how to identify the critical factors that affect the
implementation process and address them
effectively to ensure that the promised benefits
can be realised and failures can be avoided.
However, research in business-to-business
Internet marketing is still in its infancy. Most
research on Internet marketing has been either
descriptive or theoretical/speculative. There is a
lack of solid research models to guide future
research in this area. There have been a number
of attempts to identify the CSFs for B-to-B
international Internet marketing (Archer and
Yuan, 2000; Avlonitis and Karayanni, 2000;
Berthon et al., 1996a; Chan and Swatman,
2000; Duffy and Dale, 2002; Furnell and
Karweni, 1999; Honeycutt et al., 1998; Lord,
2001; Lynn et al., 2002; Soh et al., 1997);
however, few of them can provide strong
theoretical or statistical support for the
existence of these CSFs. This may be because
of the exploratory nature of these studies. As
such they deal more with the potential than the
reality of the Internet's impact. Hence, full-
scale research conducted in a highly scientific
manner must be undertaken.
To fill this gap various articles, empirical
research, and secondary case studies on B-to-B,
Internet, International marketing, and
information technology were studied. The
findings of these studies identified 21 factors
that have a direct impact on successful
implementation of the B-to-B IIM. These
factors were classified into five categories:
(1) marketing strategy;
(2) Web site;
(3) global dimension;
(4) internal related factors; and
(5) external related factors.
The authors
Riyad Eid is a Senior Lecturer in the Marketing Department,
Wolverhampton University Business School,
Wolverhampton, UK.
Myfanwy Trueman is a Lecturer in Marketing and
Innovation at Bradford University, School of Management,
Bradford, UK.
Keywords
Critical success factors, Internet marketing,
Business-to-business marketing, United Kingdom
Abstract
Business-to-business international Internet marketing is one
of the key drivers in sustaining an organisation's competitive
advantage. The challenge for organisations today is to
understand the factors that play a critical role in utilising
Internet capabilities and their implications on business
strategic objectives to enable them to compete successfully
in the electronic age. Proposes 33 critical factors classified
into five categories and validated empirically through a
sample of 123 UK companies. Discusses the significance,
importance and implications for each category and makes
recommendations.
Electronic access
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The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
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16
Industrial Management & Data Systems
Volume 104 .Number 1 .2004 .pp. 16-30
#Emerald Group Publishing Limited .ISSN 0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/02635570410514061
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