The partnership between banks and non-banks is one of the oldest and most common lateral business partnerships. While banks are looking for new markets and for cost efficient ways to implement new business models, SMEs presumably have considerable efficiency potentials within their financial processes. Some of these potentials could be realized by embedding functionality provided by banks withi...

Background. Whilst designing and implementing optimal Web information structures contributes to organisational goals and success, the size and structure of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) make Web information architecture (IA) a challenging task. At the same time, the attitudes and the capabilities of SMEs for online participation are crucial to a robust economy in nations across the world....

This paper examines the adoption and use of information and communication technology (ICT) in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across four sectors in the UK. In the paper we report on a survey that explores the factors facilitating or hampering the successful adoption and use of ICT by SMEs. We find that SMEs are generally satisfied with their investments in ICT but that they are conce...

The main objective of this article is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for Business Intelligence (BI) systems implementation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).The structure of the article is subordinated to this objective. The paper identifies the term Business Intelligence, characteristics of Business Intelligence systems, and various perspectives of their development. Then...

Purpose – The specific challenges which small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face lead to a special knowledge management system with harmonised methods and supporting software tools. This paper seeks to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach – A theoretical framework is proposed as a layer concept to describe the special situation of knowledge management in SMEs. Based on this fra...

Manufacturing SMEs moving abroad in APEC face a challenge today of craft versus standard. Investment abroad in production facilities deprives globalizing SMEs of home country advantages, without assurance of similar contextual advantages abroad. Contextspecific advantages include networks of specialized producers, adept in local knowledgesharing networks regarding technologies of machinery and ...

INTRODUCTION The e-commerce revolution has affected all organizations. Of particular interest is its effect on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), because we can observe an interesting duality, where these companies are most likely to benefit from the opportunities afforded by e-commerce (because through e-commerce, it is possible to level the playing field), and yet they appear to be sl...

Although motivating electronic business (e-business) adoption and implemention by smalland medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is endorsed by policies and initiatives introduced by the European Union (EU), a number of challenges arise as the result of a limited conceptual understanding of the relationship between SMEs and information and communication technologies (ICTs). Relatively little is known...

Although research indicates e-commerce offers viable and practical solutions for organizations to meet challenges of a predominantly changing environment, the few available studies related to SMEs in developing countries reveal a delay or failure of SMEs in adopting ICT and e-commerce technologies. The various factors identified as causes for the reticence can be broadly classified as Internal ...

Bridging the gap between knowledge institutions (especially universities) and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is one of the challenges of present economic policy. Innovation is one important aspect of this policy. However, the characteristics of both universities and SMEs appear to be an obstacle in bridging the gap between these two groups. In particular, this paper aims to highlight...