Implementation of IT/IS in Indian SMES: Challenges and Opportunities

Globalisation has forced SMEs to think beyond the traditional methodology, in the present scenario Indian SMEs are facing competition from within the country as well as from other developing countries. Small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have a crucial role to play because of their potential contributions to employment creation, improvement of income distribution, poverty reduction, growth of exports of manufactured products, and development of entrepreneurship, manufacturing industry, and rural economy. It is widely stated in the literature that SMEs in developing countries are important. IT/IS play decisive role in increasing the profitability of the organization. Competitiveness among the SMEs is makes them to think about the use of current available technology. Becoming an inherent part in large organisations, IT is a mechanism that enables SMEs to respond to customer requirements efficiently by enabling information to be transmitted. SMEs endeavour to manage the knowledge sharing process and inter-organizational knowledge. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is best and effective available technology that can be adopted by Indian SMEs to survive the competition. This paper will focus on the available technologies that can be adopted by SMEs for maximizing benefits by taking quick and accurate decision such as ERP.