Personal case : Is IT useful for SMEs, and if yes, in which way?

Résumé du document

The use of Information and Communication Technologies by Small and Medium Sized Companies (SMEs) have the potential to enable these businesses to growth through access to new markets and administrative efficiencies. However, the growth of the SMEs is hindered by their inability to adopt IT Systems. Obviously, the success or failure of an enterprise depends not only on an information system, but it can be a predominant factor. This paper investigates how SMEs can adopt an IT System to growth and achieve competitiveness. Most of the time, when we think about information systems, our thoughts directly go to large enterprises. However, small and medium enterprises have a prominent place in the economy of a country. In France alone, 90% of companies have less than 50 employees. However, such systems are mainly developed for large structures, obscuring SMEs for several reasons.

The latter have "little" financial resources, limiting the cost of development and acquisition of an information system (unless you acquire software pre-designed but often not responds to all expectations and needs of a small structure). SMEs also have structural characteristics, organizational and administrative quite different major groups. The integration of an information system becomes even more complicated because it must blend perfectly with the company as it is now, showing often a well-oiled machine, which
allows an easy evolution, but can easily seize, if an outside disturbs its operation.

Extraits

[...] Maisons-Alfort: La Documentation Française. RAVAGNANI, R. (2000). Patologie organizzative associate ai sistemi informativi integrati. Economia & Management, 85-98. STREET , C., & MEISTER, D. (2004). Small Business Growth and Internal Transparency: the Role of Information Systems. New York, USA: MIS Quaterly. THONG, J. [...]

[...] The first obvious characteristic of SMEs is their size, which has particular consequences. They suffer acutely from dos-economies of scale (BURGESS, 2002). SMEs are much more constrained in their growth and business activities as a consequence of low resources (BECK, DEMIRGUC-KUNT, & MAKSIMOVIC, 2005). Indeed, the small companies make little use of bank debt to grow, due to a lack of visibility in the long term. This is the second characteristic of SMEs compared to larger companies, namely risk aversion. [...]

[...] Methodology for implementing an IT System A. Key Success Factors and Risk Strategic Factors As we have seen in the precedent parts of this paper, there are many elements that could slow or avoid the development and the implementation of an IT System in a SME. In order to make it easy to understand, we can draw a table which gather all these elements, classifying them under two main parts : Key Success Factors (what can help the implementation and make it successful) and Strategic Risk Factors (the free electrons that can block the development of such a system): Key Success Factors Strategic Risk Factors - Size of the company - Rejection by operating teams - Industry - No fit the size of the company - Elements included in the System - Ergonomics - Training Now we know what the key elements of such a mission are, we can draw a way that can make easier the development and the implementation of an IT System. [...]

[...] (1999). An Integrated Model of Information Systems Adoption in Small Businesses. New York, NY, USA: Journal of Management Information Systems. WELSH, J., & WHITE, J. (1981). A small business is not a little big business. Boston, MA, USA: Harvard Business Review. [...]

[...] However, such a system has a certain cost to purchase and implementation (training This is why it is important to choose the items you wish to put in order not to pay for anything, but it is also the reason why many small companies can not acquire such a system. It begs the question how public authorities can help these companies to help them develop an information system, and increase their competitiveness. These systems are also often created by large groups, targeting key accounts. We can then ask if exist a niche market, to produce small information systems affordable for small businesses. [...]