Planning for electronic commerce strategy: an explanatory study from the financial services sector

Focuses on Internet strategy and its place in corporate distribution strategy. The underlying purpose of the research is to review the relationship between the generic and Internet strategies of retail institutions in the financial services industry and thus determine whether there exists an alignment between them. The corporate strategy is conceptualised through Michael Porter’s generic strategies: differentiation, cost leadership and focus. For the Internet strategy, the three options translate into certain actions on the marketplace and in the adoption of specific information technologies. The technology analysis observes the frequency of OFX adoption among the sample population based on the published list of software vendors (Quicken and Microsoft). The pricing analysis is based on each financial institution’s retail transaction account price as calculated through a defined process using the fee structure of the account. The obtained data are then used for an empirical test for any relationships between the adoption of OFX transactional technology and pricing of retail transaction accounts.