Managing technology in Macedonian SMEs context: perceptions, practices and challenges

Abstract

Academicians and policy makers alike state that technology is the catalyst of growth for small medium businesses (SMEs). The review of past research reveals that the strategic upside of technology is the accomplishment of competitive advantage through their business strategies. The effective implementation of advanced technologies enables companies to achieve economies of scale and scope simultaneously. That is, investigating advanced technologies reduces the cost of future product innovation, allowing the company to increase its speed of response to market and competitive changes. Therefore, investment in advanced manufacturing technologies represents a strategic option. Despite the great importance of technology in small sized businesses, not many studies attempted to explore technology embraced by them, especially within the Macedonian context. The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of advanced technology knowledge and usage within the specific SME sector in the Republic of North Macedonia and to discover, if technology is used, whether it is seen as crucial to their competitive strategy. Moreover, the main research question is how advanced technology affects different aspects such as costs, sales and profitability, employee productivity, customer care, share of the e-market and competitiveness. Primary data were obtained through a questionnaire survey, carried out in small and medium sized businesses in the Republic of North Macedonia and evaluated using the tools of descriptive statistics and the methods of comparison, induction, deduction and synthesis. The research results indicate that advanced technology influences favorably the overall costs and also increases profitability. Likewise, the findings show that advanced technology leads to increase of productivity and sales. One of the conclusions of the paper is that small businesses find it important to invest in advanced technology in order to promote competitiveness.