Abstract:
This article discusses the role of information and communication technology (ICT) within the small
and medium enterprise (SME) sector in Gauteng, a province in South Africa. ICT plays a very
important role in the current knowledge economy. It is vital for SMEs to participate in this economy
in order to compete and thrive in the future. The problem is that SMEs are mainly using traditional
tools to stay competitive. They need to take advantage of the power of ICT in order to take on the
competition, whether small, big or global. Both the traditional and the ICT tools are very important
for the competitiveness of the business. The article follows a qualitative research approach and
uses semi-structured questionnaires with open-ended questions as data gathering method. There
are a number of reasons why an SME might not implement ICT tools, such as limited funds, lack of
knowledge, lack of skilled staff and lack of tools. The article highlights the limitation that SMEs have
in using ICT and make recommendations on how to overcome them.
Description:
Copyright © 2011 Lloyd Modimogale and Jan H. Kroeze. This is an open access article distributed under the
Creative Commons Attribution License unported 3.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided that original work is properly cited. Contact author: Lloyd Modimogale
E–mail: modimoll@endiansys.co.za
