[1]Accountants have yet to embrace the e-business revolution, according to early returns from an online survey [2] by the National B2B Centre. John Stokdyk reports.

Early returns from the survey show that while a third of respondents consider themselves "enthusiasts" for whom e-business has made a positive contribution to their firm.

However, when it came to assessing what practitioners were actually doing with technology and the services they were providing clients, the numbers were less impressive. A third of the practitioners reported they were advising clients on their e-business strategies, but only just over half of these advisers were going a stage further and helping to implement online systems. The rest would refer their clients on to other experts or service providers.

Most of the active technology advisers, and some of the referrers, had experience integrating accounts with e-commerce applications. Smaller numbers had direct experience of electronic invoicing and payment and online collaboration with clients (17% in both cases).

Just over 10% of the sample is involved either in planning or maintaining websites, but none of the respondents so far have direct experience of operating a web store themselves.

According to Martin Turner-King of the NB2BC, more effective use of technology represents an opportunity worth £35 billion to the UK - equivalent to a 3-4% improvement in productivity - and NB2BC sees accountants as one of the chief influencers who can motivate small businesses to embrace IT.

"We're looking to work with accountants who have an interest, either existing or nascent, in e-business," he said in a recent AccountingWEB in a recent Q&A article [3].

While the depth of the profession's e-business skills is pretty thin, at least they are aware of the potential. Those who found e-business either a disappointment or not core to their activites were in a very small minority, and more than a third expressed a wish to learn more about it.

Do the early NB2BC poll results match your experience? Please record your views and experiences [4] to help us to get a fuller picture.