dc.description.abstract | The project aimed at studying the effects that electronic commerce
has had or is having on the different sectors of the Kenyan
economy. This would help understand the situation relating to
Electronic Commerce and be able to make a comparative analysis
between Kenya and the rest of the world.
While in other countries, statistics exist that help businesses
understand the potential of e-commerce, none exist in Kenya. For
example, Forrester Research, an independent research firm in the
USA estimates that by the year 2004, electronic commerce will
amount to US$6.9 trillion - this is about 8.5% of global sales of
goods and services. No one knows how much of this shall be
contributed by business in Kenya. It is important to know this so
that corrective measures can be put in place, be it by the public or
private sector.
In Kenya, there is very little electronic trading that is taking place.
In fact many people do not even know anything about it. Those who
know about it have been hindered from implementing it due to
reasons, which they say, are beyond their control, among them
being: - lack of security on the Internet, use of international credit
cards, high costs of infrastructure, lack of knowledge and
inexistence of raws governing trading on the Internet. This project
goes step by step through these various issues, addressing those
that are of concern in today's implementation of electronic
commerce and tries to educate to allay unnecessary fears that
people may have. Data was collected-through the use of questionnaires, e-mail and
telephone calls. Contacts were drawn from the Kenya Telephone
Directories. The collected data was analyzed and conclusions drawn
thereof.
From the study results, only 3.125% of the companies surveyed
used the Internet for online sales and purchases. Given that all the
organizations and institutions surveyed are in Nairobi, which is the
capital city of Kenya, this is a good representation of the state of affairs in Kenya. | en |