Abstract
Understanding how capacities and resources of companies are crucial factors to improve business performance and competitiveness is a major issue for academics, policy, and decisionmakers. The purpose of this research is to analyze the effects of the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on marketing innovation as a key strategy to increase the business performance of small- and medium-sized Mexican manufacturing companies. A gap exists in the literature regarding the full understanding of the simultaneous relationship among ICTs, marketing innovation and business performance. For this reason, a quantitative approach and cross-sectional design were applied through Structural Equation Modelling, in which a simple random sampling technique and a self-administered questionnaire was used to gather data from a sample of 230 business owners in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico. The results indicate that adopting ICTs has a significant influence on marketing innovation. Moreover, marketing innovation showed a considerable impact on business performance. Therefore, decision-makers must pay special attention to the adoption of ICTs, as they are of vital importance for the development of marketing innovations and competitive advantage. Decision-makers must also use their resources and capabilities in innovations that have an impact on the sales strategy, design and promotion of their new products as well as the redesign of existing ones to achieve higher levels of competitiveness.
Highlights
Understanding capacities and resources of companies as key elements with regard to improving business performance has become an issue of core relevance for directors, consultants and academics
In terms of the strategic alignment of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the study revealed that 40.4% of companies declare to have implemented their ICT projects following their business strategies in recent years and that their ICT applications have helped their business strategies to improve their products and services offers in recent years. 38.2% mention that their ICT capacities have helped their business strategies to strengthen their customer service in recent years, and 37.4% state that their ICT applications have helped their business strategies to improve their process management
Concerning organisational structure, 44.3% indicate to have changed their forms by adopting new ICT systems and applications to help managers to make more timely decisions, with more relevance being placed on this variable
Summary
Understanding capacities and resources of companies as key elements with regard to improving business performance has become an issue of core relevance for directors, consultants and academics This interest has been focused on specific issues such as Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and marketing innovation, as both fields seem to have evolved side by side in the last decade to become strategic assets for the improvement of company performance (Cuevas-Vargas et al, 2020; Gargallo Castel & Galve Gorriz, 2017; Jones et al, 2016; Nieves & Diaz-Meneses, 2016; Rajapathirana & Hui, 2018). Other studies have been undertaken that analyze the simultaneous relationship among the variables mentioned above, they have generally neglected marketing component (Grazzi & Jung, 2016; Rhee & Stephens, 2020), exploring instead the idea of innovation in a broader sense
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
