ICT for small and medium enterprises

Abstract

The intense global competition, technology advances, and rapid changes in the business environment are forcing enterprises to become agile. Corporate agility is about firm’s ability to adapt quickly to change, constantly innovate across the value chain, engage the customer to create new value, and be integrated to the global market. Information and communication technology (ICT) plays a critical role in improving corporate agility, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). SMEs need to maintain the competitive edge that they traditionally have over their larger counterparts: their resiliency and agility to adapt while sustaining innovation and strengthening customer relationships. Having access to and adopting ICT, which were not available to previous generations, are helping SMEs not only to achieve and sustain their traditional edge, but also to enable them to expand across customers, products, and geographies, thus growing their market share and expanding globally. Through ICT, SMEs can compete with larger players on a more level playing field and also participate in extended supply chains more effectively. ICT and the Internet are enabling SMEs to be as competitive and successful as large businesses not only at the local, but also at the global level. The impetus with which ICT has rooted itself in the business world has brought about a veritable revolution whose true consequences and scope are yet to be seen. Effective ICT management is particularly important for SMEs not only because they have much less financial resources to invest in IT and training, but also because they operate differently from large companies. Countries where they operate also have an impact on IT and SMEs, because of differences in technological status and available infrastructure, economic development, government regulations, and cultures. This special issue ‘‘The impact and use of ICT in SMEs’’ deals with the important issue of improving agility and global competitiveness of SMEs through