Information and communication technologies and small-medium enterprises

The growth and diffusion of Information and Communication technologies (ICT) is rapidly modifying how companies operate. While large enterprises can depend to a large amount of economic and human resources to move their business across the new environment, small enterprises have often problems to interpret these changes. As a result they are not able to exploit the related opportunities. Therefore it's interesting to analyze how ICT interact with the small enterprises life, in order to enhance the comprehension of the external environment and the actions necessary to manage it. This paper presents an empirical research carried out by CETIC (Centre for Economy and ICT) of the Cattaneo University, upon a sample of 370 enterprises (85% small-medium enterprises) during the second half of 2002 and the spring of 2003.