ADOPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

Abstract

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have great impact on economy of every country and small business sector is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. SMEs are becoming more dependent on information technologies (IT) for their operations. IT is a form of organizational resources that can be transformed into a valuable, rare and not easily imitable asset. The asset then makes the base of competitive advantage and high business performance. Researches in IT implementation have primarily focused on large corporations, but results of the researches may not be fully applicable in small and medium enterprises and there is need to investigate specificity of IT adoption and implementation in SMEs. Therefore, this paper researches the most important issues and challenges in adoption and implementation of information technologies in small and medium enterprises. Also, the paper treats problems of adoption, implementation and use of groupware technology.

Key Words: Information Technologies, IT adoption, IT implementation, Small and Medium Enterprises, Groupware.