Effects of Information and Communication Technology Adoption on the Operations of Modern Retail Outlets in Metropolitan Kano, Nigeria

Suraju Adewale Ramoni ,Bamidele A Adepoju

doi:10.7176/ejbm/11-2-11

Abstract

The retail environment is highly competitive and so, organised retail outlets in Nigeria have had to adopt InformationTechnology (IT) to enhance their operational efficiency. Thus, this study investigated key determinants of IT adoption in modern retail outlets in Nigeria, and how IT usage has enhanced operational efficiency of these outlets. Cross sectional research design was employed for the study and primary data were collected via self-administered questionnaire on the research variables from 400 respondents selected through a systematic sampling technique.The returned 351 copies of questionnaire which represented 88% response rate were analysed using frequency, percentage, Pearson correlation coefficient and regression model. It was found that the trio of organisational leadership, adopter’s attitude and ease of use are significant predictors of IT adoption among staff of modern retail outlets in Nigeria and that IT adoption significantly explained 57% variations found in operational efficiency of these retail outlets. It was therefore, recommended that operators of organised retail outlets familiarise themselves with various technological innovations in the retail industry with a view to using them in order to add values to their businesses and customers. Keywords : Information technology, adoption, organised retail outlets, retail operations and ease of use. DOI : 10.7176/EJBM/11-2-11

Highlights

The business world is continuously changing due to advances and developments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
In order to further expand the frontier of knowledge, key variables across various theories such as employee attitude, leadership influence and perceived ease of IT usage were combined in this study and interrelationships among them empirically ascertained with a view of producing a comprehensive IT adoption model for organised retailers.In essence, the aim of this study was to determine factors that enhanced IT adoption and how technology usage has helped organised retailers to achieve operational efficiency
The result of the linear regression analysis as revealed in table 4.4 showed that Degree of Freedom = 1, F-statistic = 460.164 which was significant as P < 0.001, indicating that IT adoption is a good predictor of operational efficiency of modern retail outlets

Summary

Introduction

The business world is continuously changing due to advances and developments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). As the pressures of global competition and the use of Information and Communication Technologies increase, it is obvious that the institutions and the way they work with people are changing. Institutions such as retail outlets that sell goods and services to the final consumers tend to be more organised as a network and responsive. According to Alqahtani and Wamba (2012) the factors that have made change inevitable in the retailing industry are fluctuations in the economy, stiffer competition from both online and offline retailers, changes in consumer lifestyle and demographic and all these have combined together to make the demand and supply sides of the market very difficult to capture manually except through information technology. In Nigeria, such organised retailing outlets are springing up in major cities and they include but not limited to The Palms in the Lagos Peninsula, Ceddi Plaza in Abuja, Shoprite in Abuja and Kano, Jifatu Stores, country mall in Kano

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