The Internet and related technologies have made a substantial impact on the way organisations conduct business in Australia and around the world. Australian organisations like their international counterparts have invested heavily to leverage the Internet and transform their traditional businesses into e‑businesses in the last seven years. E‑business investments are claiming a sizeable share of overall IT budgets in most organisations whether they are small, medium or large. However, managers are under constant pressure to justify e‑business costs and to ensure that these investments keep paying off. Earlier research on e‑business in Australia addressed issues of the rate of e‑business uptake and the application of the Internet to certain business processes. Research discussed in this paper is one of the first attempts to evaluate the value of e‑business. It is based on data collected, collated and analysed from the responses received from IT and e‑business managers throughout Australia. Research presented in this paper is based on a model developed in the USA (Barua et al, 2001) to identify the impact of e‑business drivers on operational excellence of firms which influence financial improvements. It was initiated to quantify the success of e‑business in Australia after huge losses from e‑business projects were reported by a few large organisations. The paper includes a review of literature on e‑business evaluation, research methodology, analysis techniques, a discussion of e‑business performance in Australia and presents the impact of e‑business on operational excellence and financial performance of the organisation.

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