Collaborative environment for construction project management is widely accepted as an essential element to address construction business improvement. However, there are still many problems in adopting it. Various case studies have shown people and processes in organizations as critical success factors; but not the technology. Organizations can address this issue further through the ability to measure electronic readiness (e-readiness) of their organization, enabling them to adopt and use the available Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to improve their business strategies and performance and service to customers. E-readiness reflects organizational soft issues such as business processes, management structure, change management, people and culture.

The UK government, industry and clients are all seeking to bring about a change in the construction industry to improve quality, competitiveness and profitability and to increase value to clients (Alshawi and Ingirige—2003). Over the past decade, the implementation was carried out through initiatives such as the Construction Task Force, the Government Construction Clients Panel (GCCP), the Construction Clients Forum (CCF) and the Constructing Excellence (CE). These initiatives have also contributed to the Egan report's recommendations (Egan, 1998) in securing a culture of cooperation, teamwork and continuous improvement in the performance of the industry.

A recent study by a European task force on ICT sector, highlighted the importance of ICT-based innovation in bringing productivity improvements and competitive advantage to industry. It showed that since the mid-1990s, there is a constant decline in labor productivity which is mainly attributed to the lack of ICT-related investment. Evidence shows that higher productivity growth rates observed in the US and other world trade partners of Europe are resulting from greater use/integration of ICT by all segments of the economy. For example, productivity growth in the US has been mostly driven by ICT-using services sector. (European Commission, 2006) However, industries have not been in a position to capitalize on the investment in terms of productivity growth (OECD, 2003).

Projects & Profits Magazine, Project Management, Information and Communication Technologies, ICT, Business Strategies, Management Change, Management Structure, Business Strategies, Database Management, Collaborative Bnvironments, E-tendering.