Inhibiting factors for communication and information technologies usage - Five Colombian SMEs Study
Small-to-Medium sized enterprises, SMEs, are the main development engine of economy, particularly in countries in development, as is the case in Colombia. SMEs must use information and communication technologies, ICT, as strategic tools to find their place in the global market; nevertheless, this is not a common situation for Colombian SME. In this work we present the results of a project that attempts to find factors inhibiting five Colombian SMEs toward strategic usage of ICT. Through this study we have looked at the structure and strategy of those enterprises, their value chains, ICT support to value chain activities how and where they exploit ICT-, managerial attitude toward technology, and appropriation of ICT into business, looking for inhibiting factors. Results show that the most common inhibiting factors are: poor organizational planning; inability to identify strategic use of ICT or no ICT leadership; no funding for ICT projects; lack of ICT expertise and lack of proper ICT usage by final users; and lack of technical support. Even though findings are not conclusive they show an existing trend, and highlight the main ICT inhibitor factors-IF- to be surpassed to attain local sustainable industries.
inhibiting factors information and communication technology ict ict strategic use small and medium-sized enterprises sme-in colombia sme competitiveness ict inhibiting factors in colombian smes