Cypriot enterprises are still lagging behind with regard to E-Commerce, a survey by the Statistical Service published today shows.

According to the annual survey “Information and Communication Technologies Usage and E-Commerce in Enterprises 2012”, carried out by Cyprus Statistical Service, only 8.4% of the enterprises covered in the survey said they accepted orders through the internet, and 18.6% of the enterprises placed orders via the internet.

The survey covered 1,431 enterprises with 10 or more employees in specific categories of economic activity. With a reference period of January 2102, the data were collected with personal interviews and covered the southern government controlled areas of the Republic of Cyprus (the northern part is occupied by Turkish troops).

According to the results of the survey, 49.2% of the enterprises provide their employees with portable devices that allow a mobile connection to the internet for business use.

Furthermore, 63.4% of enterprises have a website and 96.7% of them offer access to product catalogues and price lists. The enterprises by a margin of 84.6 use the internet to interact with Public Authorities and 30.3% of the enterprises use the Electronic Procurement Systems (e-Procurement) of the Treasury.

A total of 21,8% of the enterprises which participated in the survey have Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) and 25,0% have Customer Relationship Management System (CRM).