Dutch small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are one of The Netherlands’ most important sources of wealth creation and employment. No less than 99% of private enterprises consist of medium and small-scale businesses. They provide employment for 2.3 million people (60% of the Dutch labor force) and account for 52% of the national income generated in the private sector (www.mkb.nl/mkbnederland/english.shtml).

The process of adoption of technological innovations in Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) is highly complex. Whereas SMEs are particularly important to the Dutch economy, the innovation potential of SMEs is still highly unused. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is seen as a modern catalyst for innovation. In this paper we propose the use of a network of SMEs, industry organizations, intermediary parties and knowledge institutes, to achieve adoption of new information and communication technologies. This proposed network is motivated by our experiences in the ASPect project, which intends to enable the adoption and diffusion of Application Service Providing within SMEs. We discuss the project's organization, the results and effects and the lessons learned. The ASPect project thus serves as a case of how a knowledge network can foster ICT innovation. Finally, we argue that this knowledge network may serve as a model for an R&D network of SME companies.

In this chapter we present an overview of the approach taken by the Dutch government regarding the development of the information society and in particular the diffusion of electronic commerce in small and medium organisations. Our analysis also includes an assessment of the current situation of SMEs with respect to the adoption of electronic commerce and their position with respect to the governmental policies. Furthermore, we refer to active policy implementation instruments (“iMPact” and “ASPect” projects). Finally, the last part of the chapter is devoted to a benchmarking of European e-business policies, so that meaningful comparison of the Dutch initiatives with other similar programs could be achieved.

The recent abundance of notorious dotcom failures leads to an acute need for realistic evaluation procedures for the performance of e-business initiatives. This This research was carried out within the Giga Transaction Services project at Telematica Instituut. This project is part of the GigaPort program and is financially supported by the Dutch Ministries of Economic Affairs, of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, and of Education, Culture and Science. The BFIT Electronic Business Analysis Methodology 747 paper proposes a structured approach for e-business analysis. The methodology contains three interrelated parts: a structured set of aspects, a set of analysis objectives, and a guiding plan for analysis. The set of aspects is grouped around the BFIT acronym, which stands for Business model, Finances and Information & Technology. These aspects are further decomposed, resulting in an aspect (reasoning) tree. The analysis objectives are related to parts of these reasoning trees. The analysis process follows a step-wise plan, which uses the proposed BFIT tree structure. A Web-based analysis tool was designed to support the BFIT analysis methodology.