The Role of IT Competences in Gaining Value from E-Business: an SME Case Study

Abstract

Many SMEs have been slow to exploit the potential of e-business. However, it can be difficult for any firm to gain value from e-business, and particularly so for SMEs that may lack important information technology (IT) competences. The study focused on one SME which had undertaken a series of e-business initiatives over a period of 10 years. The analysis revealed that the firm used e-business in two different ways: e-business for innovation, and e-business for integrating business processes. Four IT competences were found to be particularly important to the firm’s developments: IT leadership, business systems thinking, architecture planning, and making technology work. The study provides a detailed understanding of how the firm used e-business to gain value and how its IT competences influenced its e-business developments. The study also shows that a lack of competence in some areas inhibited the firm’s e-business developments.