An Empirical Study of Application Service Provider (ASP) Adoption in SMEs

With the rising trend of e-business and IT outsourcing, emergence of Application Service Providers (ASP) can satisfy the needs of numerous small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which in usual has a shortage of information technology professionals and appropriate cost-effective software applications. An ASP is a mode of software services offered through rental. This type of arrangements enables corporations to bring in reliable information systems with much lower costs. The availability of such services effectively upgrades the levels of information application in corporations. Since ASPs are expected to provide direct support for SMEs, this research is initiated with the intent to uncover the real needs of SMEs for ASP. The main objective of this study is to provide an empirical study of the needs among enterprises in various industries for ASPs. From this research, it is found out that food and beverage industry, retailers, and restaurant businesses lean toward software rental mode, and are suitable targets for the application of the ASPs services in the surveyed industries. Another finding in this survey is that the top concern of SMEs focuses on execution level services. This observation is useful for ASPs to meet the needs of their potential customers.