The e-Visibility Maturity Model

Assessing Stages of Visibility Evolution for e-Business

Olga Levina

and Iris Vilnai-Yavetz

Department of Systems Analysis and IT, Berlin Institute of Technology, Einsteinufer 17, Berlin, Germany

Department of Business Administration,Ruppin Academic Center, Emek Hefer, Israel

Keywords: e-Business, Maturity Model Design, Cross-country Study.

Abstract: This paper suggests a model to measure e-visibility - the e-Visibility Maturity Model (e-VM model) that is

used to assess the visibility of a company or set of companies in the global e-business market. The visibility

is measured using company’s involvement in electronic interactions with customers that is externalized by

the integration of the Social Software (SoS) in its other means of online presence. This approach allows

evaluating company’s adaptation to the challenges of the social web and scaling the evaluation to industry

or country level. The evaluation of the maturity can be completed based on external presentation, i.e., the

website, of the company allowing an efficient evaluation process. The suggested maturity model for

assessing e-visibility is based on related work in the area of maturity assessment in e-business. Its

application is illustrated in a case where the e-VM for specific countries across industries is assessed, based

on a sample of 1600 enterprises from four countries.

1 INTRODUCTION

The introduction of the internet opened a new

procurement channel for enterprises that allows

reaching the customers all over the world. The

upcoming of the SoS in the recent years enforced

this development by making a fast and even real-

time interaction between customer and enterprise

possible. While e-business required not only the

introduction of new technologies in the routine or

commonly known business processes, it also

initiated the change of the mode of customer

communication. Building on this technology,

introducing SoS in this context supports the

paradigm of the immediate interaction with the

customer, and it also adds the aspect of inter-

customer communication and opinion formation.

This aspect leads to the state where not only the

company and the customer communicate with each

other, but also customers communicate among each

other about the company in real or almost real-time.

For the enterprises SoS provides, if managed

correctly, an opportunity to get a good insight about

customers' attitude as well as an opportunity to

spread commercial information using the customer

as an information channel enabled by the SoS.

Recently enterprises in different countries and

different industries have accepted the challenge and

involve SoS in their customer and product

communication. SoS is considered here as an

internet-based application that requires user

interaction (Bryant, 2006). The term interaction is

used here synonymously to “interactivity” that is

defined by (Rafaeli and Sudweeks, 1997) as a

“condition of communication in which simultaneous

and continuous exchanges occur, and these

exchanges carry a social, binding force”. This

definition further implies that interactivity can be

shown to lead to more cooperation and socialization

(Rafaeli and Sudweeks, 1997). Based on this

definition as well as the social presence theory

(Gefen and Straub, 2004) this paper explores the

question of how to assess the different levels of

maturity of the visibility of an enterprise for an

online customer. This paper employs a suggested

maturity model - the e-VM model - to explore the

degree of the involvement in a mutual customer-firm

interaction. Thus, e-visibility is defined here as the

potential to interact and involve the customer in the

e-market through the given, i.e., presently possible,

means of communication. This model aims to assess

the visibility of an enterprise in the e-business

marketplace by exploring its usage of the

possibilities provided by the internet in general and

163

Levina O. and Vilnai-Yavetz I..

The e-Visibility Maturity Model - Assessing Stages of Visibility Evolution for e-Business.

DOI: 10.5220/0004519901630170

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Data Communication Networking, 10th International Conference on e-Business and 4th

International Conference on Optical Communication Systems (ICE-B-2013), pages 163-170

ISBN: 978-989-8565-72-3

 2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

by SoS in particular. The model uses the social

presence theory (Gefen and Straub, 2004) to develop

its maturity stages and it is based on the argument

that SoS allows firms engaging in timely and direct

end-consumer contact at relatively low cost and

higher levels of efficiency than can be achieved with

more traditional communication tools. This

argument results from the findings that show that

SoS enables a higher social presence of an enterprise

and therefore a higher influence on customer’s

behavior (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Beside the

SoS, the maturity model also involves more

“classic” means of customer communication.

The social presence theory (Gefen and Straub,

2004) states that media differ in the degree of “social

presence”—defined as the acoustic, visual, and

physical contact that can be achieved—they allow

emerging between two communication partners.

Social presence is influenced by the intimacy

(interpersonal vs. mediated) and immediacy

(asynchronous vs. synchronous) of the medium, and

can be expected to be lower for mediated than for

interpersonal, and for asynchronous than for

synchronous communications. The higher the social

presence, the larger the social influence that the

communication partners have on each other's

behavior (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Based on

these arguments, stages of a suggested e-VM model

as well as the specific indicators were designed.

To assess the degree of the visibility of a firm,

the concept of a maturity model has been adopted as

a maturity model provides levels, or stages, for a

class of objects representing an anticipated, desired,

or typical evolution path of these objects (Becker et

al., 2009). Maturity is defined as “a measure to

evaluate the capabilities of an organization with

regard to a certain discipline” (Becker et al., 2010).

Here the measured capability is visibility of an

enterprise for the customer on the web-landscape,

and the discipline is the positioning of the company

along the possible e-visibility maturity levels. As a

result, based on the assessed maturity, improvement

or strategic measures can be addressed (Pöppelbuss

and Röglinger, 2011), (Morais et al., 2007).

The outcome of this paper is a model that can be

used in research and practice in the broad context of

e-market assessment. Since the suggested e-VM

model provides indicators for the current state and

development of an enterprise as well as indicators

for benchmarking, this paper provides insights for

strategic managers in enterprises that are already

present on the e-market or are planning to enter the

e-business, as well as for scholars and marketing

practitioners and thus can serve as a foundation for

future research on interorganizational systems.

Usage of the e-VM is illustrated on a case where the

model is scaled to compare e-VM across industries

in four different countries.

The paper is structured as follows: first the

relevant related work on maturity definition in the

context of e-business is presented. Then, the

suggested e-VM structure as well as the model is

described based on the accordant research design. In

section five the case of e-VM application is

presented. Conclusion and outlook finish the paper.

2 RELATED WORK

(McKay et al., 2000) proposed an e-business

maturity model, the Stages of Growth for e-business

(SOG-e model), based on the model by (Galliers and

Leidner, 2004). The model focuses on technological

aspects of e-business growth. (Chan and Swatman,

2004) focused on the development of the business to

business (B2B) stages of growth model. They

reviewed the literature on stages of growth models

and studied the development of the e-commerce in

one Australian company. They defined four maturity

levels and five dimensions of the e-commerce

development: Initial e-commerce; Centralized E-

commerce initiative; Looking Inwards for Benefits;

and Global e-commerce. (Rao et al., 2003) proposed

e-commerce stages of a growth model for small and

medium sized companies. Their model consists of

four stages: Presence, Portals, Transactions and

Enterprises.

The maturity models in e-business described

above focus on the internal structure of the business.

Nevertheless, the growing number and importance

of SoS requires its integration in the assessment of

the role of an enterprise in e-business. Thus, the e-

VM model we offer here focuses on the external

aspects of the enterprise presentation and customer

communication. It also takes the challenges (e.g.,

security) and opportunities (e.g., social

bookmarking) offered by this development into

account.

3 A FRAMEWORK

FOR ASSESSING E-BUSINESS

VISIBILITY

3.1 Research Design

The e-VM model that is introduced here is based on

the statistical analysis of internet presence of 1600

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enterprises from four different countries: Germany,

The Netherlands, Israel, and Russia (400 per each)

and 27 different industries (e.g., fashion, higher

education, real estate, and healthcare). This analysis

was conducted using different variables, which were

transformed into indicators of the suggested e-VM

model. Employing the methodology suggested by

(Mettler, 2011), the model is illustrated using the

case of various countries.

The object of analysis (e.g., a company) is

analyzed based on its external virtual appearance,

i.e., the webpage, without taking the internal

processes and their support into account. The

dimensions of the analysis are defined here as e-

visibility dimensions and are translated into

operative and measureable indicators using specified

criteria. Each indicator is measured by a scale that

produces a score used to position the object of

analysis into a specific stage that defines its current

state of e- visibility (see table 1). Thus, using the

suggested e-VM model, the position of an enterprise

as well as its relative position can be evaluated.

3.2 Structure of the e-VM Model

The scope of the e-VM model is the B2C interaction

of enterprises. The model can be used to assess the

e-VM of an enterprise as well as be scaled to sets of

enterprises, to analyze a specific industry, or the

benchmark between industries as well as broader

sets of businesses. It is suggested that the e-VM

model provides five possible stages for the

enterprise e-visibility evolution analysis: 'the

invisibles', 'the beginners', 'the niche players’, 'the

sociables', and 'the celebrities'. These stages are

aligned along four dimensions:

1. Level of interactivity: based on the definition

of interactivity by (Rafaeli and Sudweeks, 1997) and

their claim that interactivity can be shown to lead to

more cooperation and socialization (Rafaeli and

Sudweeks, 1997) we measure interactivity as an

indicator of mutual communication. Here the

question about how much the e-communication with

the customers is mutual is answered by using the

indicators: online presence, interaction mode and

intensity as well as level of potential commercial

activity.

2. Level of globalization: This dimension was

developed based on the analysis of factors impacting

involvement in e-business (Fillis et al., 2004). The

focus is put here on the extent to which the e-

communication targeting global and/or local

populations. Here the indicators are: language of the

online presence as well as the type of SoS used.

3. Level of sociability: (Cyr et al., 2007) who

focus on the role of social presence in e-Service

provide the theoretical basis for this dimension. Here

the extent of the social presence of the enterprise

that is supported by SoS use is questioned, using the

activity of firms in SoS as indicator.

4. Level of security: (Jones et al., 2000) studied

trust, privacy and security in e-business. Their

conceptualization assisted in developing this

dimension. The focus here is on the usage of

international standards or national certificates to

ensure secure transactions if online purchase is

possible.

To assess the specific e-VM of an object of

analysis, these dimensions are translated into

evaluation criteria. Each criterion is further assigned

to its components to assess the current e-VM state of

the object of analysis (see table 1). The score values

are based on the definition of social presence theory

(Gefen and Straub, 2004) as well as the definition of

interactivity (Rafaeli and Sudweeks, 1997) and its

resulting stage.

3.3 Definition of the e-VM Stages

The e-VM stage of a firm or a set of firms (country

or industry) is analyzed and defined using the scores

assigned to the criteria as shown in table 1. The table

provides the scores that can be assigned to one

evaluated firm but also the score calculation and

assignment for the case where the e-VM of several

firms, i.e., firm sets, need to be evaluated. Score

assigned to a set of firms is based on the relative

number of firms with a specific value for an

indicator. First it is defined whether a firm has an

online presence at all. Based on this result the online

presence is eventually analyzed according to the

further criteria mentioned in table 1.

Static presence of an enterprise in SoS is defined

here as the sum of the factors such as: having a link

from the enterprise homepage to a social site, having

a profile on a social site, providing bookmarking or

sharing possibilities on the enterprise’s website.

While the static presence in SoS states a rather low

interaction level, dynamic presence describes an

almost real-time interaction pattern with the

customer. Thus, the indicators of dynamic presence

include a microblogging account and a possibility

for live chat with customer service.

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Table 1: e-VM model: indicators and scores.

Evaluation criterion Indicator

Indicator

description

Score to be assigned to one

evaluated firm

Score to be

assigned to a set of

firms

Webpage Does the firm have a webpage?

Yes= continue

No= 'invisible'

0% - 'invisibles'

0-50% - 'beginners'

51-100% - continue

Interaction mode

SoS links

A link to at least one SoS in the

firm's website

Yes=1,

No=0

1= 0-40%

2= 41-100%

Intensity: classic

interaction

The sum of all positive answers to

the usage of mail, e-mail, contact-

box, phone and fax.

0-5

1= 0-2.99

2= 3-5

Intensity: dynamic

interaction

The sum of all positive answers to

the usage of Twitter account, link to

tumbler, and chat

0-3

1= 0-0.99

2= 1-3

Mobile application Advertised on the webpage

Yes= 1,

No = 0

1= 0-15%

2= 16-100%

Product description In the webpage

Yes= 1,

No=0

1= 0-50%

2= 51-100%

The Interaction dimension score (max) 11 10

Purchase

Product order online In the webpage Yes= 1, No=0

1=0-50%

2=51-100%

Payment online In the webpage Yes= 1, No=0

1=0-50%

2=51-100%

Mobile purchase In the mobile application Yes = 1, No =0

1 = 0-10%

2 = 11-100%

Payment: local

Involves the usage of specific

means of payments that are

common in the specific region, e.g.

electronic cash (EC) in Germany.

Yes= 1, No=0

1= 0-50%

2= 51-100%

Payment: global

Includes online payment

possibilities such as Paypal as well

as the usage of credit cards (visa,

master card, etc.).

Yes= 1, No=0

1= 0-50%

2= 51-100%

The purchase score (max) 5 10

Language

Mono

language or Multi

language

Only one local language or multi

language with or without English

If Mono language is largest=

1, if Multi (regional) is

largest =2, if multi incl.

English is largest =3

If 1 is largest= 1, if

2 is largest =2, if 3

is largest =3

The language score (max) 3 3

Presence in SoS

Static SoS presence

intensity

The sum of links to static SoS in

firm's webpage (e.g., instagram,

YouTube)

Calculated sum of links (0-5)

1= 0-1.99

2= 2-5

Dynamic SoS presence

intensity

The sum of links to dynamic SoS in

firm's webpage (e.g., Twitter,

tumblr)

Calculated sum of links (0-3)

1= 0-0.99

2= 1-3

nvolvement in popular

SoS

Accounts for Facebook, YouTube,

and Twitter (FYT)

One point per each (0 to 3)

1=0-0.99

2= 1-3

Globalization oriented

SoS presence

Global to local SoS ratio.

13 Links to global SoS (e.g.,

Blogger, Facebook) and 10 links to

local SoS (e.g., my.mail.ru,

mainVZ).

(if Global=0 or local=0, i.e.,

no links to Global or local)=0

(Global/local < 1) = 1

(Global/local =1)= 2

(Global/local > 1) = 3

Same as for the

evaluation of one

firm, but based on

the average

Global/local ratio

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Table 2: e-VM model: indicators and scores (cont.).

Evaluation criterion Indicator Indicator description

Score to be assigned to one

evaluated firm

Score to be

assigned to a set of

firms

Sharing possibilities Links to Social Bookmarking sites

(misterwong, Google+, delicious,

digg, stumbleupon)

One point per each (0 to 5) 1= 0-0.99

2= 1-5

SoS usage intensity Sum of positive answers for 23 SoS

(e.g., instagram, MySpace, etc.)

0-23

1= 0-1.99

2= 2-23

The SoS presence score (max) 42 13

Security Standards

or Certificates

Registration with

password

In the website Yes=1, No=0 1= 0-50%

2= 51-100%

Usage of https Where there is registration in the

website

Yes=1, No=0 1= 0-50%

2= 51-100%

Usage of trust

certificates

In the website Yes=1 , No=0 1= 0-50%

2=51-100%

The security dimension score (max) 3 6

4 SCORING THE E-VISIBILITY

MATURITY

Based on the defined dimensions and using the

scores of the evaluation criteria the e-VM of a firm,

an industry or a country can be calculated.

The scores provided in table 2 are designed for

the evaluation of the object of analysis, e.g., an

enterprise. The relation between the scores and e-

VM stages is shown in table 3.

The e-VM of an object of analysis can be

assessed as being in one of the following five stages:

invisibles, beginners, niche players, sociables or

celebrities.

An object of analysis is assigned to the set of

“invisibles” in e-VM terms if it does not have a

website at all and thus offers only a limited amount

of communication possibilities with the customer.

Also, the customer data is not transmitted online,

thus online security measures are not applicable and

the interactivity is limited.

Beginners are objects of analysis that have

started to emerge on the e-market but have not yet

integrated the majority of the possible ways to

engage with the customer. For the sets of analyzed

objects it means that more than 0 but less than 50%

of the set elements are presented online providing a

threshold for the following e-VM stages.

As niche players an object of analysis is

described that shows online presence, i.e., for sets

more than 50% of the elements provide an online

presence. This constrain is applied to all of the

following stages of e-VM. Furthermore, niche

players show a limited amount of socialization, by

focusing on the static aspects of the online presence.

They are mostly involved in local or regional SoS

and provide standard security measures for the

management of the online customer data as well as

enlarged portfolio of trust certificates. In addition,

the niche player offers product description in

regional languages. e-VM niche players concentrate

on the specific country or region and do not offer a

vast amount of online transaction possibilities.

Objects of analysis that have an online presence

and are well integrated in the static SoS

environment, meaning that they show static online

presence as well as sharing possibilities and are

involved in regional as well as global SoS are called

defined as “sociables”. They also offer product

descriptions and online content in regional

languages as well as in English and provide a

standard amount of security measures for online

transactions.

The celebrities - in e-VM terms these are objects

of analysis that are well integrated in regional as

well as global SoS environment. They offer dynamic

and static presence and thus an increased level of

interactivity with the customer. Also, online

purchase is enabled using globally accepted means.

As a result security mechanisms are also highly

developed for these firms.

4.1 Assessment of the e-Visibility

The e-VM of a firm is assessed based on its online

presence, i.e., the website. The assessment does not

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require any additional expertise in the business area

of the object of analysis. Also, making an online

purchase or visiting SoS link of the firm is not

necessary for the assessment. This allows an

efficient and objective assessment of the e-visibility,

using the indicators from table 1 and assigning the

scores as suggested in table 2.

Table 3: Scores related to maturity stages for one firm and

a set of firms.

Maturity

stage

Score Range by dimensions

(firm / set of firms)

Interac

tivity

Globalizat

ion

Sociabi

lity

Securit

Invisibles 0 / 0 0/ 0 0/0 0/0

Beginners 1 / 1-2 1/1 1-3/1 1/12

Niche

player

2-3 /

3- 6

2-3/ 2-4 4-10/ 2 1/ 3

Sociables

4-9 /

7- 13

4-5/ 5-7

11-27/

3- 8

2/ 4

Celebrities

10-15/

14- 20

6-8/ 8-10

28-42/

9-13

3/ 5-6

To assess the interactivity dimension the interaction

mode and purchase evaluation criteria are used. For

the dimension of globalization the language

evaluation criterion group as well as purchase

criteria (local vs. global payment) as well as the

globalization oriented SoS presence from the SoS

presence evaluation criterion group are used. The

security dimension is assessed by the security and

trust evaluation criterion group. To assess the

sociability dimension SoS presence evaluation

criteria are used. It is important to note that no total

or general score is calculated for an object. The

rationale of the model requires four separate scores,

one for each of the mentioned dimensions, so the

object's e-visibility can be assessed and analyzed as

described.

Scores shown in table 2 can also be used to

assess the maturity of a set of enterprises. Accordant

scores are presented in table 1 and their usage will

be demonstrated in the following case where we

analyze and compare e-VM of four countries across

industries (see table 3).

5 APPLICATION OF THE e-VM

MODEL: e-VM OF COUNTRIES

Here the e-VM Model is used to compare the e-VM

between countries. The data was collected in four

countries where each 400 enterprises across 27

industries were surveyed. Thus, for the survey of the

webpage indicator all 1600 enterprises were

analyzed while for the other indicators only

enterprises with an online presence were surveyed.

Table 3 shows that the Netherlands have the

highest percentage of firms with an online presence.

The Netherlands is also leading in the interaction

and online purchase areas. The payment methods

were not assessed during this analysis due to

methodological inconsistency. The usage of

languages on the homepage also differs between the

countries. While over the half of the companies in

each of the surveyed countries uses only one

language for the online presence, Israel is leading in

the usage of regional languages, due to its high

amount of different minorities, and Russian

Federation does not use regional languages for the

online content description at all. Israeli enterprises

are also leading in the providing of sharing

possibilities of the enterprise websites while The

Netherlands show the highest involvement into

popular SoS, general SoS usage intensity and the use

of security standards and certificates.

The results show that The Netherlands are currently

positioned on the highest maturity level of the e-

visibility, followed by Israel and Germany that are

currently on the crossroads towards the celebrity

phase with Israel focusing on the regional aspect and

Germany showing a relative sparse use of SoS for

customer engagement. Russian Federation is in the

beginners stage of e-VM as only 29% of the

surveyed enterprises had an online presence (i.e., a

website). The Russian enterprises with an online

presence though, showed a significant interactivity

and sociability level indicating a potential movement

towards the celebrity stage of e-VM.

6 DISCUSSION AND OUTLOOK

In this paper a maturity model for e-visibility

description was presented and its application was

demonstrated on the comparison of e-VM across

industries for specific countries. The insights allow

an understanding of the areas of use of modern

communication technology in e-business as well as

discover potentials of their better integration as

customer communication and engagement tools. The

model provides general dimensions and indicators to

assess the e-VM. These dimensions and evaluation

criteria are further detailed by indicators. These

indicators are based on the currently used SoS and

communication means. Nevertheless, they can be

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Table 4: Comparing e-VM between countries (across industries).

Indicator Measure

Germany

% of enterprises

(score)

Netherlands

%of enterprises

(score)

Israel % of

enterprises

(score)

Russian Federation

% of enterprises

(score)

n=400 n=400 n=400 n=400

Webpage 82% (2) 85% (2) 79% (2) 29% (1)

Interaction

mode

SoS links 23% (1) 12% (1) 20% (1) 54% (2)

Intensity: classic

interaction

1.75 (1) 3.21 (2) 2.67 (1) 2.74 (1)

Intensity: dynamic

interaction

0.37 (1) 1.35 (2) 0.92 (1) 1.0 (2)

Mobile application 10% (1) 39% (2) 17% (2) 14% (1)

Product description 99% (2) 100% (2) 97% (2) 97% (2)

Sum: Interaction mode 6 /10 9/10 7/10 8/10

Purchase Product order

online

28% (1) 79% (2) 31% (1) 51% (2)

Payment online N.A. (1) 33% (1) 27% (1) 21% (1)

Mobile purchase 9% (1) 34% (2) 10% (1) 7% (1)

Payment: local N.A N.A N.A N.A

Payment: global N.A N.A N.A N.A

Sum: Purchase 3/6 5/6 3/6 4/6

Language Monolanguage 64% (1) 54% (1) 52% (1) 68% (1)

Multi (regional) 4% 6% 24% 0%

Multi (global) 32% 40% 24% 32%

Sum: Language 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/3

Presence in SoS Static SoS presence

intensity

0.80 (1) 1.68 (1) 2.29 (2) 1.41(1)

Dynamic SoS

presence intensity

0.37 (1) 1.35 (2) 0.92 (1) 1.0 (2)

Involvement in

popular SoS (FYT)

0.90 (1) 2.35 (2) 0.94 (1) 1.26 (2)

Globalization

oriented SoS

presence

(Global/Local ratio)

1.46/0.25= 5.84

(3)

2.69/0.08= 33.63

(3)

1.67/2.03=0.82

(1)

1.46/1.46=1 (2)

Sharing possibilities 0.40 (1) 0.09 (1) 2.26 (2) 0.31(1)

SoS usage Intensity 1.83 (1) 2.78 (2) 2.16 (2) 2.41 (2)

Sum: SoS presence 8/13 11/13 9/13 10/13

Security

Standads or

Certificates

Registration

password

35% (1) 65% (2) 36% (1) 62% (2)

Standards (https) 35% (1) 57% (2) 19% (1) 15% (1)

Trust 24% (1) 94% (2) 41% (1) 47% (1)

Sum: Security 3/6 6/6 3/6 4/6

adjusted to the changing communication landscape,

while the dimensions and evaluation criteria provide

a solid and sustainable framework. Thus, the model

can be adjusted in scale as well as adopted to the

changing online communication landscape.

Furthermore, the model shows potentials that can

be used to define measures to achieve the aimed

maturity stage. Future work will include case studies

to assess the e-VM between individual firms that

differ in size and scope, or between industries as

well as the exploration of the potential managerial

measures that result from the model application.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank our partners in this international research

project – Medzhybovska, N. & Makarova, M.V.

(Odessa State Economic University, Odessa,

Ukraine), Davidavičienė, V. (Vilniaus Gediminos

Thee-VisibilityMaturityModel-AssessingStagesofVisibilityEvolutionfore-Business

169

Technikos Universitetas, Vilnius, Lithuania),

Solovetskiy, A. (Siberian State University for

Telecommunication and Informatics, Nowosibirsk,

Russian Federation), Vermeulen, A. & Saçan, E.

(FONTYS University of applied sciences,

Eindhoven, Netherlands) - for their contribution to

this study.

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