Usage location. In most countries, many users access either from home or from work,
with home being the more common location. Work access places constraints on Internet
marketers since firewalls will not permit some plug-ins or rich e-mail to be accepted.
Access device. For example, browser type, screen resolution and computer platform
(available from web analytics services as described in Chapter 9), digital TV or mobile
phone access.
Connection speed– dial-up or different choice of broadband speed.
ISP– a portal-based ISP such as AOL or Wanadoo, or an ISP which does not provide
any additional content.
Experience level– length of time using the web and their familiarity with online purchase.
Usage type– mode of usage, for example, work, social, entertainment.
Usage level– frequency of use and length of sessions giving total usage level in min-
utes per month.Online demand for business services
We now turn our attention to how we assess online customer demand and characteris-
tics for business services. The B2B market is more complex than that for B2C in that
variation in online demand or research in the buying process will occur according to dif-
ferent types of organisation and people within the buying unit in the organisation. We
need to profile business demand according to:Variation in organisation characteristics
size of company (employees or turnover)
industry sector and products
organisation type (private, public, government, not-for-profit)
application of service (which business activities do purchased products and services
support?)
country and region.Individual role
role and responsibility from job title, function or number of staff managed
role in buying decision (purchasing influence)
department
product interest
demographics: age, sex and possibly social group.For generating demand estimates, we can also profile business users of the Internet in
a similar way to consumers by assessing the following three factors.1 The percentage of companies with access
In the business-to-business market, Internet access levels are higher than for business-to-
consumer. The DTI International Benchmarking Study for 2004 (DTI, 2004) shows that
around 95% of businesses in the majority of countries surveyed have Internet access
although this figure masks lower levels of access for SMEs (small and medium-sized enter-
prises) and particularly micro-businesses. Understanding access for different members ofCHAPTER 2· THE INTERNET MICRO-ENVIRONMENT