Software Quality and Productivity Model for Small and Medium Enterprises

The enterprises today including small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are dependent on software to accomplish their objectives and maintain survivability and sustainability in their businesses. Although many studies in software quality have been carried out previously, they still lack for the correlation between software quality and the impact to SMEs productivity. The objectives of this study are to determine the quality factors from management’s perspective and to determine the impact of software quality and the productivity of SMEs. It is implemented through a survey conducted in Malaysia which involves 43 respondents who are among the managers and management of SME companies. The survey indicates that efficiency, expandability, functionality, reusability, safety and usability are the most influential factors from a management perspective. The research hypotheses defined are accepted with strong relationships between the defined variables. It shows that the level of software quality assessment in SMEs is correlated with the level of its productivity. Based on these findings, a software quality and productivity (SQAP) model for SME is developed. This paper presents the development of SQAP model which can be used as the standard and guideline in the process of obtaining and upgrading software in SMEs and can further be applied in quality assessment in the organisations. Keywords—Software Quality; Small and Medium Enterprise; SME Productivity; Software Quality and Productivity Model