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By Joey Gardiner, 27 January 2000 18:38

NEWS Only eight per cent of European CEOs consider themselves expert Internet users, while half maintain that ebusiness is the most important issue facing their companies today. The claims come from a global ebusiness survey of over 1,000 CEOs by accountancy firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, (PwC) for the Davos World Economic forum. The report, called 'Inside the Mind of the CEO', also found that Europe lags behind the US significantly in its attitudes to ebusiness, and is also at risk of falling behind Asia and Latin America. European CEOs also have less support from their governments than the rest of the world. While half of Asian and North Amercian CEOs feel their governments are supportive of ebusiness, only 31 per cent of European CEOs said their governments have similarly high priorities. Showing a similar disparity, 68 per cent of North American CEOs said they expect significant competition to come from the Internet, while only 56 per cent of their European counterparts feel the same. On a global scale, the attitudes of the CEOs seemed remarkably stable from the same survey last year. When asked why ebusiness is important, 47 per cent said it helps service existing customers more effectively - up from 46 per cent the previous year. Only 38 per cent said it is to uncover new customers - down two per cent from the previous year. An overwhelming majority think the main impact of ebusiness will be on the customer; 74 per cent said marketing and sales sectors will be most affected by ebusiness, while the remaining 26 per cent claimed internal and supply chain issues will change most radically.