An Evaluation of the Impact of Integrated Business and Information Solutions (IBIS) on the Growth of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria

摘要

The Small Scale and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) have been credited with enormous contribution to the growth of the developed economies of the world. In the same vein, the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), and particularly the Internet have played their own part in those economies. In this paper, we explore how the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the developing economies can achieve their own growth through the adoption of the concept of Integrated Business and Information Solutions (IBIS). While we acknowledge that the SMEs can contribute to the expansion of these economies, we also affirm that the level of this contribution increases with a commensurate increase in the level of investment on IBIS. A pilot study of 40 Nigerian SMEs from across 5 industry sectors confirmed the hypothesis that increased investment in IBIS results in increased growth. The paper concludes with a discussion of the issues, prospects and problems surrounding the adoption of this concept, as well as suggestions on the way forward.