e-Business readiness index
Information and communication technologies (ICT) are powerful drivers for economy-wide productivity, growth and jobs. The ICT sector contributes to a quarter of the EU's GDP growth and investment. The "e-Business readiness indicator" gives a broad picture of the level of ICT adoption, ICT use and e-business development at country level.
The "e-Business readiness indicator" is an aggregate indicator. It uses the annual "ICT enterprise survey data" and picks from there 6 questions to measure "ICT adoption" and respectively 6 questions to measure "ICT usage".
Composite indicators are used to describe complex issues, which cannot be measured by a single indicator. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) have together prepared a guide for building Composite Indicators, " Handbook on Constructing Composite Indicators: Methodology and User Guide".
Information Society Statistics
The yearly survey covers in total of about 0,6 % of all EU enterprises in 27 Member States and, as voluntary action, also EEA States and Candidate Countries.
- 2008 Survey
2008 ICT enterprise survey questionnaire 
[175 KB]
- 2007 Survey
2007 ICT Enterprise Survey - questionnaire [179 KB]
[2 MB] Efficient adoption and use of ICT is a key factor to help European enterprises to raise their productivity and competitiveness.
The 2007 European e-Business Readiness Index, using data from the 2006 European enterprise survey of ICT use and e-commerce by Eurostat, is a useful mechanism for comparing e-business adoption and use by firms in the various European countries by sector, size and country.
The European e-Business Readiness Index measures the ICT adoption by 6 components and the ICT use by 6 components. The report describes the indicators and data coverage. The results of the 2007 European e-Business Readiness Index are compared with results from earlier years.
The 2007 European e-Business Readiness Index
The analyses in the 2007 European e-Business Readiness Index show that ICT adoption and ICT use increase slightly in many countries. The countries from the northern part of Europe steadily occupy the top ranks and have consistently done so for the last 3 years. The leading position of Denmark for ICT use is really outstanding. Together with the Mediterranean Member States, most of the states from the Eastern part of Europe which joined the EU recently are still in the developing stage of their e-business environment.
Although it can be difficult to compare the performance of one country across years, as corrections or misinterpretations of the Eurostat model questionnaire could provide inconsistencies in the trends, we overall observe a consistent increase over time of ICT adoption and moderate growth of ICT use. However, Member States have different growth rates in adoption of ICT, so their relative performances in adoption tend to diverge with time. The analyses show that significant progress in ICT use is usually made when a satisfactory level of ICT adoption is already achieved.
In fact, most of the countries featuring important improvements in ICT use during the period are leading countries. For adoption of ICT, the strongest progress between 2003 and 2006 was achieved by Iceland (21%), Ireland (20%), Spain (18%), the Netherlands (17%), Italy and Portugal (16%), Czech Republic (15%). For use of ICT, in the same period, Denmark showed the largest progress (15%). The largest progress in adoption of ICT in the short term (2005-2006) was achieved by Ireland, the Netherlands and Austria (6%), followed by Italy, Czech Republic and Latvia (5%). In use of ICT, the largest growth was obtained by Spain (5%). For the countries approaching saturation in adoption of ICT, advances are mainly realized for the use of ICT.
More detailed information on the 2007 e-Business Readiness Index [2 MB] .
