Abstract:

The main purpose of this study was to assess the performance of e-business based enterprises in the East African Region Particularly Kenya and Tanzania. The research was guided by the following research questions: does the size of business affect the performance of the firm? Does the coverage of the business in the market affect how it performs? and to what extent does expertise in the business affects performance? The research design that was used included inferential and descriptive studies, the population constituted 432 online based businesses, the sampling design was stratified random sampling which was about 33.3% of the population. The data collection method used was a questionnaire which was online based, the research procedures included the use of pilot test which led to the improvement of the questionnaire standards and performance, and the data analysis was through point estimation and measures of central tendency and dispersion. The study found out that there was no correlation between the size of the business and when the business was adopted indicating the size affected the overall outcome of when the business decided to adopt e-business technology. The most preferred platform for E-business was the website, since it allowed for different people all the over the globe to utilize it. The platform is not affected by the size of the business or the cost of operating it. The costs which are associated with operating an e-business include cost of purchasing internet bundles, purchasing of equipment such as servers and infrastructure to connect to the internet. The operations of the business are affected by adaption of e-business technologies especially in the sales docket which is considered to have received the most impact. The exposure of the business is increased at an average of between zero to twenty five percent. E-business is accredited with enabling business to acquire clients from outside the country and this changed how they interact present their goods and services which means that they have to had to introduce transport as part of their operations, packaging of the product has to change in order to accommodate the new clients’ needs and employing of more competent staff who would be able to communicate fluently and operate the e-business technology. The challenges which were not included poor infrastructure, lack of knowledge about the e-business operations, poor internet connections and lack of trust. Some of the suggestions which were provided include improvement in the infrastructure education of the public about the operations of e-business, reduction of operational costs and making the e-business platform more users friendly. The availability of expertise in business is essential and most businesses opted to have at least one in charge of their operations where they would conduct a minimum of one educational training per year. Cost of internet services, distribution of internet in the country and knowledge of e-business in the country are sited to be among the factors which are ranked highly by the businesses to major concerns which affect their day to day operations. Performance of the business is majorly influenced by the following factor, the technology chosen for e-business, size of the business, Trust on the operations of e-business, diversification of the product and services to suit clients on a global level and IT literacy level. The study concludes that the size of the business should control the costs associated with the adoption of e-business technologies in order to be able to make a profit, also with the increasing coverage of the business in the business environment it is paramount that businesses to be flexible to accommodate the changes which might arise in their operations in order to deal with a totally different crowd and it is essential for the success of the business to have an expert in change of the e-business technology in order to achieve the most out of it. The study recommends that business should consider the functionality of the platform to be used before adoption and should forfeit technology which might prove to be a burden due to the high costs of operating it. It further states that the business ought to include the infrastructure required for e-business and internet costs in their recurring budget to further improve its performance and it is of great importance to educate the public about the operations of the e-business platform. Lastly all the employees should be IT literate and the businesses are encouraged to be conducting more educational seminars to gain high caliber employees