Companies that want to succeed at e-commerce need to be proactive in managing their online reputation, according to research firm Gartner.

Increasingly, consumers have more information about a company's reputation because of the proliferation of rating sites and social networks such as LinkedIn, Computer Weekly reports.

The trend may also see an escalation in online security threats from criminals blackmailing firms, threatening to damage a company's online reputation.

In order to fight back, firms need to build their own online communities that encourage feedback and transparency.

Analyst Jey Heiser commented: "Amazon and eBay succeeded precisely because they explicitly provided reputation evaluation systems. If your business depends on a positive internet reputation, or an accurate evaluation of external reputations, you need to address this."

Meanwhile, a separate study by Gartner found that the security software market for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region will grow to £1.6 billion by the end of 2007.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent)