The virtual internationalisation process of Italian SMEs in the food industry

Abstract

This paper aims to critically analyse the idea of global marketspace (1) and the generally accepted idea that internet and electronic transactions (2) can provide small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and bigger companies with the same access to global markets. This analysis is conducted in respect of wine and olive oil industries. Collected data clearly show the internet is still not a real tool in promoting the internationalisation process of SMEs. Some justifications are proposed. Firstly, it was noted that most of the analysed companies only approached the internet in 2000. As a consequence they have not yet developed a significant level of competences with respect to this new strategy. Moreover, the investigated companies seem not to have implemented Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools. Finally, the internet has often been considered merely as an adjunctive distribution channels and not as a completely new business system.