Businesses to grow’

business and business-to-consumer e-commerce sales in 2011 amounted to £483 billion, a 13% increase on the previous year.

Professor Susan Hart, dean of Strathclyde Business School, said: “SBS appreciates the importance of digital business and while the research shows a lack of market interest in an entire MSc offering, to make its development viable we will continue to develop innovative specific modules within this innovative business field.”

She defended the report’s methodology and findings, and said she would be discussing with Scottish Enterprise how to progress the provision of twoto three-day CPD modules which, she said, was “showing leadership”, while establishing a course without sufficient demand could be “catastrophic”.

Ian McCoull, director of innovation support for Scottish Enterprise, said the agency would be organising meet- ings with stakeholders including Skills Development Scotland and industry group, ScotlandIS, to enhance Scotland’s e-commerce capability.

He said: “[Research into] Scotland’s current position says our businesses are broadly in line with the rest of the UK. Our job at Scottish Enterprise is to increase awareness, improve data capture and develop networks that enhance our capability.”

Polly Purvis, executive director of ScotlandIS, said: “The suggestion of CPD modules is a great starting point and we’d be keen to see this happen. It has clearly been difficult to measure demand for an MSc at this stage but we would anticipate that demand will increase as Scottish businesses increasingly adopt e-commerce.”

The SBS report, Demand For MSc Course in E-Commerce, was commissioned by Scottish Enterprise at a cost of £6200 and compiled by SBS PhD student, Pareek Khare.