INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & SMEs

Information Technology Adoption in SMEs

Information technology Adoption in SMEs

Small & Medium sized Enterprises

The contribution of SMEs to the national economy, provide jobs and make a significant contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) and gross national product (GNP). Own definition of SMEs varies between organizations and countries.

The small and medium enterprises (also known by the acronym SMEs) are a company with distinctive features, and have dimensions to occupational and financial limits preset by the States or Regions. SMEs are logical agents, cultures, interests and specific entrepreneurial spirit.

Small and medium-sized enterprises play an important role in the economy of all countries. The countries of the OECD tend to have between 70% and 90% of workers in this group of companies. For example, the Small and Medium Industries Development Corporation (SMIDEC) in Malaysia using the following criteria to define small and medium enterprises:

• Number of employees

• Invested capital

• Total amount of assets

• Annual sales turnover

• Production capacity

• Average income

The World Bank's definition of SMEs is as follows:

• Small enterprise: up to 50 employees, total assets of up to $3 million and total sales of up to $3 million.

• Medium enterprise: up to 300 employees, total assets of up to $15 million, and total annual sales of up to $15 million.

Distinctiveness of SMEs

This argument must be reaffirmed with the understanding that business alliances allow the generation of the great things that involves collective strategic marketing, on the one hand, and the other, lead to increases in market size, which permits both lower costs of goods or raw materials, and exploiting the experience and business skills d other entrepreneurs, also impacting on the effective and efficient distribution and transportation systems that minimize freight costs and transportation in general, allowing business integration for marketing and distribution networks of local and regional. The success and survival capacity of SME companies, are remarkable even when a series of internal factors such as deficiencies in the communications network and services, their limited financial capacity, the low qualification of its workforce, operational failure or lack of technical information to limit their development. Age of business: survival in the market for micro-enterprises indicates that the turbulence of the environment limits their survival in the market as 72% have an average less than 10 years; the figure is more favorable for small noting 31.5% and 19% for medium.

Properties are often discussed as typical SME resources are limited, informal management style, flexibility and reliance on a single decision maker. These properties affect how the management and operation of SMEs. The most common problem for SMEs is the limited resources compared to large enterprises.

SMEs are usually limited in their choice of business, must focus on core business and expertise. This has led to outsourcing non-core business activities of its many small and medium enterprises, such as a third party, they can afford such an investment. Lack of resources led to the SMEs in their business more constraints. Limited financial resources mean that SMEs must be cautious of their investment ...