The Effect of Technology to the Competitiveness and Productivity of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SME’s)

Numerous large businesses that are operating today were once started as small businesses. A new business is established to create a good or service that no other businesses have ever created or simply a product of higher quality than existing products, with the purpose of meeting customers’ needs and earning profits. Due to the technological advances at the present time, starting and operating a new business is less laborious. Nevertheless, would-be entrepreneurs should be familiar with the proper approaches to start their businesses.

Small businesses were once the backbone of the United States economy. After a time these business owners expanded, merged, and bought other businesses. This historic business trend has created some the well know corporations we know of today. One example would be the development of Wal-mart. Today, small businesses operate in the shadows of “big box” stores. However, small business owners account for more than 90% of, but only less than 5% or 10% of the GDP, “gross domestic product.” As a manager of a large corporation or a prospective business owner it is wise to be knowladgeble of new competitors, state of the economy, and current management trends. There are trends today that will change everyone’s expecatons of small business

Is sustainable competitive advantage possible, and how can technology be used as its catalyst? This is the question that has vexed managers and business leaders for decades. According to Michael Porter, the answer lies in how technology is used. In this Case Study Report, Team 3 discusses how Mrs. Fields, Inc. leveraged technology for strategic positioning. Mrs. Fields, Inc. did not create the sweet snack industry, but it was the company’s innovative use of technology that helped the company sustain a competitive advantage over other companies vying for those same impulse snack dollars.

Small businesses are mighty minnows, reflecting the competitive spirit that a market economy needs for efficiency; they provide an outlet for entrepreneurial talents, a wider range of consumer goods and services, a check to monopoly inefficiency a source of innovation, and a seedbed for new industries; they allow an economy to be more adaptable to structural change through continuous initiatives embodying new technologies, skills, processes, or products (Ibielski 1997, p. 1).

Conclusion: This paper is intended to give clarity on the depths of small businesses, how they plan to succeed and get through possible adversity. The surviving mechanism it takes to maintain in a world where large businesses are expected to exist longer than small business.

Small medium sized enterprises and small and medium sized businesses are often referred to as SMEs. These are companies whose number of employees or turnover falls underneath certain limits. The EU defines companies with fewer than 50 employees as small, and those

This report looks at the benefits and challenges SME in working with MNCs, and examines strategies for establishing SME-MNC connections and relationship, allowing them to open new horizon & improve their abilities to expand and prosper. For MNCs, working with SMEs can bring benefits such as lower costs, enhanced innovative capacity, and increased flexibility in responding to changing conditions. The JAR submission format would layout are in following sequence of: Introduction; Reason for choosing the article; Article Summary; Article Critique; Concluding Comments and last but not lease, References.

Efficiency and effectiveness that results in productivity and competitiveness is very important for SMMEs and more important for its high rate of employment. An exploration study by Menchaca (2014) indicates that seven out of ten jobs are being generated by small businesses. For that reason, it is significant to analyse and implement new strategies that can offer SMMEs great advantage into its production capacities and assist into becoming more competitive.

Venture capital(VC), which is known as the risk investment, shows significant role in promoting the SMEs in raising finance. VC includes business angel financing, relationship lending and so on. All of them are good choices for SMEs, specifically for the small and medium companies which are just starting up.(Dagogo, 2009) “Venture capital is the fuel for high potential growth firms, especially in the United States. New venture survival is tenuous at best, but those backed by venture capitalists tend to achieve a higher survival rate than those that are not.” said by Robert(2010), moreover, in his study shows “ survival for venture capitalists backed ventures range from around 65 percent to 85 percent of the venture capitalists’ portfolio.” If SMEs managers can get help like this, they would have more chances to develope. Having a overview on the SMEs, they have nothing but the companies, without large amount of capital or collaterals.VC might be a better method of

Small Business Enterprise or Small-Medium Enterprise (SME), in today's business environment, faces a lot of daily major challenges. Balancing the SME’s effort to address these challenges can be an intimidating task, unless a systematic approach is identified and followed. Recently, SMEs started moving towards the utilization of business success which enables SMEs to learn how to continuously improve the utilization of resources to achieve better productivity and performance. Therefore, critical success factors are the quantifiable aspects of the fundamental

Innovation offers the companies a competitive advantage. Presently and within the future, more than any time in history, the key to competitive advantage is innovation. However innovation will facilitate businesses meet all of their strategic challenges, not simply competition; to illustrate, in confronting accelerating rates of change, globalization, apace advancing technology, a additional numerous workforce, associated a modification from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy. Meeting all of those challenges helps the firm attain competitiveness, and meeting these challenges suitably depends on innovation. Innovation allows a firm to workout its challenges in distinctive ways in which build competitive advantage either through relative differentiation, a relative low-priced position, or few acceptable level of each. Innovation cannot assure success, however success cannot be achieved within the end of the day without it.

By definition, SMEs are “small and medium-sized” enterprises. The most standard classification of SMEs is by number of employees although sometimes revenues are also used. Many SMEs are of a stable size and are content to remain small. Firms in this category include many family businesses, most sole proprietorships and many other micro, small and medium sized firms. While SMEs are clearly a large and critical part of most economies around the world, SMEs differ greatly in their growth orientation. The term “SME”, which describes a firm’s size, is therefore not adequate for measuring entrepreneurship or anticipating internationalization of firms. Growth orientation as well as both the inclination and ability to internationalize are important characteristics in SME internationalization. Entrepreneurs can actively compete in the international market through five avenues: exporting, importing, joint ventures, direct foreign investment, and licensing. Further I will analyse all the options.

Thus, in Brunei’s perspective, there is an upmost importance for economic diversification via promoting the growth and development of small medium enterprises (SMEs). SMEs play an indispensable role in the development of a less economically developed country to improve its economic outlook. However, the SMEs within the local business ecosystem are

In his book (Prasad C. S., 2004) has predicted the vision of SMEs up to 2012, regarding the employment generation and open economic development of trade from India. The author explained that due to Liberalization, Globalization and WTO a rethinking is being made to analyse the targets before the SMEs sector. The author suggested that with the inherent advantage of flexibility and innovativeness of the sector, the major constraints of economies of scale could be met by adopting the cluster development and formulation of appropriate policies. The book is based on the compilation of the various articles of the author published in different journals on the theme of WTO and SMEs, SMEs financing, SMEs policy, Employment Generation in SMEs and Export potential and cluster development among SMEs etc.

The importance of small and Micro Enterprises (SMEs) in the economy of any country cannot be overlooked. In fact for nearly 15 years, most researchers dealing with economic planning have highlighted the significance of these enterprises stating that they are a key player in realizing any country’s economic goals. As such, governments as well as other organizations with interest in development are laying plans and strategies to promote the establishment of Small and Micro Enterprises. This is seen as a move to ensure that there is full participation of SMEs in the country’s economy. The Small and Micro Enterprises have been known to contribute to a large extend as a source of innovation, entrepreneurial skills as well as source of employment. For example, statistics in 25countries of the European Union show that 99% of the jobs provided to its citizens come from the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. Rowe (2008) points out that the British economy relies heavily on the participation of SMEs. On the other hand, 99% of the UK’s economy is composed of small and micro enterprises.