Specifications for an internet based clean technology information support system for SMEs

Abstract

To address the increasingly pressing issue of environmental degradation, much effort have been dedicated to promote the use of cleaner technologies in the European Union (EU) Member States. Thus, efforts to produce information systems designed to attend companies with their technology acquisition process have been made. However, due to their restricted resources, the existing Technology Intelligence (TI) systems do not correspond to SME-specific needs. To fill this gap, the objective of this paper is to identify Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises' (SMEs) information needs in the field of clean technologies with the aim of making recommendations for the conception of an Internet based clean technology database destined for the use of European SMEs. Also, in order to evaluate to what extent these type of information systems are useful to SMEs when it comes to their technology acquisition process, four clean technology-related databases available on the Internet in English corresponding to one or more of the specifications previously identified in the first section have been selected and analysed. In conclusion, it was established that these information systems were found to be a sound first step for SMEs wishing to obtain concise first-hand knowledge on clean technologies. On the other hand, the time constraints of SMEs and the extent of the information available in such databases make them unfitting to serve as a suitable decision making tool. Incidentally, it might be interesting to consider the development of specialized information systems designed to help SME support actors attend SMEs with their clean technology acquisition process.