A leading British management consultancy recently made a presentation on electronic business to the chief executive of a large Dutch company. The consultants began by showing the chief executive how to surf the Internet. But first they had to teach him how to switch on his computer.

The Dutch chief executive is not alone in his ignorance. Half of all senior managers in the UK and France have never attended a technology briefing, according to a survey carried out last year by the Bathwick Group, a London-based technology consultancy.

Mr Andy Green, strategy director at British Telecommunications, says many senior European managers hand out business cards without an e-mail address - something that rarely happens in the US. "In Europe, it's very, very difficult to do collaborative work on e-mail," Mr Green says.

There are still many European managers who believe they can leave e-business to their technology specialists and that they need no personal experience of the Internet or e-mail. "They say it doesn't matter, but it does. You need some personal experience so that you can talk to people," Mr Green says.

So are European managers hopelessly outclassed by their American counterparts when dealing with the world of e-business? A year ago, many executives and analysts would have said "yes".

But there are signs that European managers are starting to catch up. There are even areas, such as access to the Internet through mobile telephones, where Europe could surge ahead. "The level of understanding in Europe has increased dramatically over the last six to nine months," says Mr Philip Crawford, head of the international arm of EDS, the US computer services group. "If you'd asked me nine months ago, I would have had significant concerns."

Nevertheless, Mr Thierry Antinori, head of sales at Lufthansa, the German airline, believes European companies are still up to two years behind the US in areas such as dealing with suppliers online. When it comes to Internet sales to consumers, the best European companies are eight to 10 months behind their US counterparts, he says.

It is difficult to generalise about European managers' willingness to embrace and manage the new technologies because it varies widely by country.

The Bathwick study showed that companies in the Nordic countries - Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark - were far ahead of their competitors in the rest of Europe in the use of the Internet in their sales and other operations.

The only other country in the same league was the UK, which was in third place despite the large number of managers who had never attended a briefing on the subject.

German companies were still cautious but were making steady progress, Bathwick found. Germany was "strongly positioned to be a major European e-business player". Italy showed "very high intent from a poor base".

The laggards of Europe, the survey found, were France and Belgium. France, in particular, was "rapidly becoming the main black spot in European development of ebusiness". A survey by Andersen Consulting last year also showed French executives were less convinced of the need for change than their colleagues in other European countries. Only 50 per cent of French managers thought they would be more reliant on e-business in five years then they were now. In Sweden, the Republic, the UK and Germany, more than 90 per cent of managers expected to be more reliant on e-commerce in five years.

One of the problems facing chief executives worldwide is knowing how to respond to the growth of ebusiness when it is changing so rapidly. The Andersen Consulting survey found that, even in the US, 58 per cent of managers agreed that the rapid rate of market change made it difficult to decide e-business strategy.

In Norway, 71 per cent of respondents said rapid change made decision-making difficult. In Germany, 64 per cent said the same, as did 72 per cent in the UK and 77 per cent in France.

In the US, many online retailers were overwhelmed by the rush of orders over Christmas and few American Internet-related businesses make a profit. Does it follow that chief executives in countries such as France are right to be cautious? Is not "wait and see" a legitimate e-business strategy?

"It's a valid question," says Ms Rosemary O'Mahony, director of European e-commerce at Andersen Consulting. "It's clear that we're at a very early stage in electronic commerce and the rules are evolving. So one reaction is to wait and see. But the pace of change is so quick that if you wait for a stable situation you will be too late."

Mr Green says that European executives need to develop a greater sense of urgency. "If you don't believe there's someone out there doing your business with a tenth of the people at a tenth of the cost, you don't understand what's going on. This is not a wait-and-see issue."

There are signs that European managers are waking up. When Andersen Consulting interviewed European managers in 1998, companies reported limited involvement in e-business. By last year, 53 per cent of companies were using ebusiness for sales and marketing and over a third were applying it to procurement accounts, logistics and product development.

"I think Europe has some unique advantages which will give us an opportunity to take the lead in some areas," Ms O'Mahony says. "Mobile e-commerce will change the face of e-commerce in Europe. So will delivery through digital television. I don't think it's too late."

Mr Green says managers have to guard against US companies exporting their e-business expertise to Europe, undermining their prospects. But he argues that there is no need for European despair.

"I believe there's still time," says Mr Green. "At the moment, only 5 to 10 per cent of European consumers want to do e-business. It's the same on the business-to-business side. But this is an increasingly value-conscious age. If people believe using technology will get them lower prices and better services, they will use it.