• by March 6, 2001

America's business leaders - across all industries - are among the country's most wired population. That's according to a recent major study of Internet usage among nearly 400 senior executives (including CEOs and CFOs) of the 1,000 largest U.S. companies, conducted by the research and marketing department of The Wall Street Journal Online with Harris Interactive Inc.

The survey found that 98% of participants use a computer and access the Internet at work, on average spending a third of their at-work computer time, nearly eight hours a week, online and a total of nearly 12 hours a week online including work and home Internet use. Interestingly, only 12% of the respondents surveyed work for technology companies.

Senior executives have clearly embraced technology and the Internet to help them succeed in their professional lives; and as a result of the Internet, nine in 10 of those surveyed consider themselves better informed on business issues and more productive in their jobs.

The top executives surveyed said that in addition to often using the Internet to send or receive email (91%), they most often used the Internet to read news or content for business (56%), research business competitors (39%) and research business opportunities (25%). When the numbers of executives who "often" or "sometimes" use the Internet for those purposes are added, those percentages rise significantly: email (98%), business news or content (86%), competitive research (79%) and business opportunities (58%).

When online, the types of sites these executives most often access include industry news and information sites (52%), search engines (51%) and general business news sites (45%). E-commerce or shopping sites are accessed 16% of the time, and about nine in 10 of those surveyed have made online purchases. When the numbers of executives who "often" or "sometimes" use the Internet for those purposes are added, those percentages increase to: industry news and information sites (87%), search engines (88%), general business news sites (81%) and e-commerce or shopping sites (67%).

The survey, conducted from October-December 2000, was one of the first in-depth studies exploring top U.S. company senior executives' Internet usage and online habits. Titles of participants ranged from chairman to senior director.

"The general perception is that CEO-level executives in non-technology industries aren't very technologically savvy," said David Krane, senior VP at Harris Interactive. "We learned that today's most senior executives across all industries have a solid comfort level with PCs and the Internet. These executives appear to be early adopters of new technologies as they recognize additional opportunities to increase their business productivity."

Survey respondents often use a cell phone (73%), Palm Pilot/PDA (36%), pager (24%), instant messaging (10%) and wireless Internet devices (nine%).

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