A TOE Perspective of E-Business Deployment in Financial Firms

Introduction

The increasing globalization, enabled by advancement in information system (IS), has accelerated national and regional markets integration, international production, distribution, marketing, and consumption. Internet World statistics (2014) indicate that the number of active (those who spend at least one hour per week online) users rose to about 3 billion in 2014. Similarly, the eMarketer report reveals Business-to-Consumer forecasts of total world e-commerce sales will hit about 1.5 trillion in 2014 (Nielson, 2014). International Data Corporation (IDC) projects e-commerce ICT spending to grow 3.8% in 2015 to 3.8 trillion. (IDC, 2014). The report also indicates that business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) segments of the online market will drive e-commerce growth. According to United State Census Bureau 2014, total e-commerce sales for United States for 2012 were estimated at $1.8 trillion, up from a revised $1.7 trillion in 2011. Total retail sales in 2012 were $227 billion, an increase of 14.7% from $198 billion in 2011. Based on the foregoing, this paper examines electronic business use in Nigerian financial firms using the technology-organizational-environmental framework (TOE).

Electronic business (e-business) is often regarded as generally focused on e-commerce, however, the true definition is much broader. The Aberdeen Consulting Group defines e-business as the automation of the entire spectrum of interactions between enterprises and their distributed employees, trading partners, suppliers and customers. E-business encompasses the application of electronic systems to transform functional processes (Xu, Rohatgi, & Yangxing, 2007). Both definitions include a broad range of business processes such as multi-entity product design collaboration, electronic product marketing and information sharing, e-commerce sales of product to consumers or between firms or governments, internal business process re-engineering, multi-entity supply chain collaboration and customer relationship management. The operational definition of e-business in this chapter includes all business transactions firms conduct using open standard (e.g., the Internet) and/or closed standard networks (e.g., Electronic Data Interchange - EDI).

Revenue generated from e-business support and related services grow at a rapid rate in Nigeria, despite the insecurity in online economic transactions. With the liberalization of the telecommunication sector and the introduction of GSM services, experts predict a boom for e-business activities across Nigeria including Lagos. Lagos is the commercial and economic hub of Nigeria attracting key investments in financial activities and information and communication technology (ICT). As the fastest growing industry in Nigeria, the ICT industry is projected to be the next foreign direct investment driver in the next decades. E-business value was $58.1billion in 2013 up 22.9% from USD44.8billion in 2012. (Okoro, 2013). The financial services industry (FSI) is a significant source of development and growth in Lagos. The Lagos corporate sector, especially the financial and oil industries are all expected to experience increased growth in their future EB activities.