Today, companies must create a competitive advantage to stay in the market and not only that but also to acquire new techniques and ways of doing new business. This leads them to diversify and acquire new clients and become more productive and obtain greater profits, which is what is ultimately pursued when being an entrepreneur or when you have an established company.
This competitive advantage in a small or medium-sized company is difficult to achieve if you do not have a fully set vision and objectives, however, with the advances in the information age, companies can differentiate themselves by obtaining Information Technology. Given the importance of this topic, this article is developed where the motivation, benefits, challenges and relevant recommendations within what concerns Information Technology for Small and Medium Enterprises can be seen.
Introduction
Of the micro, small and medium-sized companies that are created each year, half, that is, between 150 thousand and 200 thousand, close in the same period, mainly due to the lack of a business plan (González, 2006).
Like this one, we can see various headlines in newspapers or listen to an expert or simply an acquaintance that more and more many of the small and medium businesses do not have the opportunity to grow, or even to maintain themselves. This is because they did not use a good business strategy, which is not only knowing which market they are targeting or selling an excellent product or service but also having systems that allow them to achieve a competitive advantage over their competition and that make it stand out and thereby stay in the market.
It is alarming that this continues to happen and that even when seeing that many companies fail because they do not have a business plan or a market strategy, many entrepreneurs venture without having enough weapons to survive. Information technologies represent an increasingly important tool in business, however, implementing an information system in a company does not guarantee that it will obtain results immediately or in the long term. In the implementation of an information system many factors intervene, one of the main ones being the human factor. This and other related topics will be discussed in the first part.
Many companies are lagging behind because of this, it must be understood that today the use of IT is essential for the operation of any company and that if you want to excel, you must use IT in the best possible way and achieve with This will pay off the investment made in it. For this reason, a series of recommendations will be included in the second part, for those entrepreneurs who wish to implement IT in their new business, as well as for companies that are already underway and require IT for further growth.
Methodology
Bibliographic sources were used for the realization of this article from the ITESM Digital Library, such as EBSCO, ACM Digital Library, IEEEXPLORE, PROQUEST and a Periódico en Internet (El Universal).
Small and medium-sized enterprises: motivation, benefits and challenges for the use of information technologies.
There is no doubt that the use of the Internet has been increasing in recent years, we can clearly see this in the graph, where, for example, in the case of Finland, using the Internet for a small company (from 10 to 49 employees) is almost on a par with medium-sized companies (50 to 249 employees) and large (250 and up), which means that although Internet penetration is usually higher in larger companies, the gap between large companies and SMEs is narrowing, (Barba, Martínez and Jiménez, 2007) and that the use of the Internet for the use of other technologies is taking place every day. For Mexico there is no data for small companies but for medium and large companies and as you can see it is close to 90% for the first and approximately 95% for medium companies.which shows us that it has not lagged behind and takes advantage of this technology.
The above could be a motivator for more and more entrepreneurs to take advantage of the Internet as well as other IT and that in SMEs with some time in the market that have not yet implemented it, discover a wide range of services with its use. Although it should be noted that Information Technologies are more than just the Internet and computer equipment.
Information and Communication Technologies can be conceptualized as tools that encompass the information that businesses create and use as well as the broad spectrum of convergent and linked technologies that process such information; therefore IT can be seen as a collective term for software, hardware, telecommunications, information management techniques, applications that are used to create, produce, analyze, process, distribute, receive and store information. (Barba et al 2007).
With this perspective, it is possible to understand how IT, through its diverse application trail, can help SMEs to grow and diversify and even create a new business strategy, however, it must be taken into account that all the benefits do not exceed the investment Do not even do the maintenance costs, because in the long run this can overwhelm the businessperson or entrepreneur and make them give up implementing some IT due to their lack of knowledge about the management of the system. All this is balanced when making a good choice of what the company requires and having technical assistance that the IT provider company can provide.
IT can contribute to improving the management of information and knowledge within the company, it can reduce transaction costs, and there are also very effective tools that increase and improve external communication and its quality between new customers and customers. already existing too.
In a less ambiguous way, the following benefits can be obtained, although it should be clarified that there are many more: (Cela, 2005), Increase the productivity and effectiveness of certain activities or functions, favor the adoption of new business models, whether organizational, strategic and / or administrative, allow access to new business styles, also the generation of new markets and therefore to reach more customers, improve the skills and specialization of the company's staff (human resources) which in turn increases the efficiency and effectiveness and generates specialization.
The challenges that small or medium-sized companies may face can translate into difficulties at the time of implementation of some IT in the organization such as: rejection of it by the top hierarchy when they feel fear in Regarding the operation and functionality of the technology, having the sufficient knowledge and capacity to be able to re-implement some adjustment of the technology as well as to be continuously checking the innovations that may be presented so that there is an efficient use of IT.
Recommendations on IT Implementation.
Although it is necessary today, having some innovation in terms of some IT in the company, having a vision and openness for change make it easier to implement it, coupled with it, as the Prices of computer equipment fall, their capacity increases, and they become easier to use, Information Technology is used in new and varied ways. In companies, its applications are diverse. Today, most medium and large companies (and more and more small and micro-companies) use IT to manage almost all aspects of the business, especially the management of financial and transactional records of organizations, records of employees, billing, collection, payments, purchases, and much more.Therefore, care must be taken when implementing any Information Technology so that this is done in the most efficient way possible; some recommendations for implementation are: (Barba et al, 2007)
- It is emphasized that the implementation of IT solutions is done gradually since sudden transformations have the risk of failing because organizations are not ready for it. Adequate training and support is required, it is necessary to emphasize that one of the Difficulties for SMEs when they exploit the potential of IT is the lack of recognition of the benefits that are also associated with little or no training in IT, either at the application or methodology level. The smaller the company, this problem becomes more complex since many companies of this type do not regularly use IT as part of their action tools, although, as part of their accounting systems. Therefore many problems must be solved to make the use of IT simpler,profitable and well integrated into the activities of the organization.Another important factor is to adopt continuous training to solve problems in specific situations, in this way employees, administrators and entrepreneurs can acquire a learning culture, adding said training in their routine activities and in the same way, understanding the potential of communication and information tools.adding this training in their routine activities and in the same way understanding the potential that communication and information tools have.adding this training in their routine activities and in the same way understanding the potential that communication and information tools have.
It must be emphasized that forcing the company to implement IT is one of the main reasons for a failure to use it as part of a competitive advantage and efficiently.
What must be done, then, is to introduce technology little by little and defining concrete and short-term benefits for the company, and then the more general and long-term advantages are visualized and modeled. Furthermore, special attention must be paid that the introduction of IT can bring tremendous changes in the way of working, therefore, the specific culture of the company, the background of the entrepreneur or business owner and / or partners, must be taken into account, All this is of the utmost importance, coupled with the fact that they must have an open mind to orient themselves towards innovation.
To analyze how to start introducing one or more IT, a convenient approach is the vertical sector in which the SME is located and to work on developing strategies that guide specific sectors that are the ones that will be the direct beneficiaries of IT. Regarding this, some of the factors that influence the use of IT in SMEs are: (Barba et al, 2007)
- The business sector you are in. The nature of the products and services that are obviously directly related to the business sector. The level of education and age of the business owner (this will clearly affect the availability and initiative to new changes). The level of closeness or proximity to suppliers (this will result in a shared effort and will help more, for example, if you plan to order via the Internet).
Having a small or medium business brings many benefits in addition to the extra efforts that must be made if success is to be achieved, hard hours of work as well as incurring costs to keep it in the market. All this interrelated with Information Technology and a clearly focused vision will make the small or medium business not only stay current but grow continuously.
conclusion
With the dramatic changes that have occurred in technology in the last 15 years, it can be seen that businesses today can no longer be managed in the same way that generations of yesteryear did. They saw the way to manage a company according to their time, the context in which they lived and the necessary requirements for their operations. Having a cash register, to speak of an example of a small store, was almost a luxury, since the accounts were made mentally and using paper and pencil. Nowadays, whoever does not have at least a basic computer system is considered obsolete and runs the risk of being left behind and that someone else is ahead winning with their market.
Thinking of small and medium-sized companies, it is notorious to see that growth is and will continue to be a lot but at the same time, if at the start of a company the precaution of having technology systems that include the exchange of information and the integration of Some of the business operations at least, these companies can be affected, seeing how the most prepared competitor does grow and even with the danger of disappearing.
Something that is notorious is the resistance to change faced by the owners of these businesses who refuse to hand over control or change or implement technology and that for this reason many of these companies are left behind, that is where an expert voice must enter the Information technology issue to be able to make the person see that it is not something extremely complicated and of the various applications and even more multiple benefits that come with implementing an information system.
The fear of change stops many of these small and medium-sized companies from starting with something from the world of technology in their business; much preparation is missing. However, entrepreneurs must be aware that it is necessary to keep up-to-date and continually struggle to weigh the obstacles required to open a new business, be it small or medium. They must lose the fear of making investments in technological systems that in some way optimize their operations and that although they generate a short-term expense, they are nothing more than that: an investment that will pay off in the long term if the company's strategy remains the same. time efforts are brought together. This marks the clear difference of many companies that have recently been formed and that despite the great existing competition are still in force.
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