Several business in Malta are small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and they are often run by a sole owner or as small family businesses. Due to lack of knowledge amongst other reasons, entrepreneurs running these business do not make use of ICT to its full potential and consequently they are less competitive and productive than larger companies.
Di-ve yesterday reported on an EU funded project called EVITA that provides an e-Learning course on ICT aimed at SMEs. Malta is represented in this project through Fondazzjoni Sir Temi Zammit.
Di-ve yesterday reported on an EU funded project called EVITA that provides an e-Learning course on ICT aimed at SMEs. Malta is represented in this project through Fondazzjoni Sir Temi Zammit.
I think that is a very good e-Learning initiative. Such entrepreneurs have the motivation to learn and little time to spare in order to attend traditional lectures. Moreover, e-learning is an excellent platform for geographically dispersed companies to share best practice in the field.
The majority of business in Malta are considered SME. Many of these are single owner sole traders that employ less than 5 people. Investment in IT infrastructure, even though beneficial, can be an issue for some of them. Many entrepreneurs do not really value the benefits gained by introducing IT. Unfortunately it is not easy to quantify the financial benefits of IT. Therfore it may be hard to persuade entrepreneurs to invest.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand there are SMEs that invest, especially those within the finance industry such as banking and insurance. Their dependency on IT has made them more flexible and agile as companies to a point where competition has become very difficult making markets hard to enter into.
Teaching entreperneurs to value the use of internet and how to use it to full business potential is a good idea. Moreover in business courses such as the university's BComm, Informatics forms part of the curriculum. The potential that can be drawn out of education is significant. Formation of budding entrepreneurs is not lacking. MCAST also introduces informatics in its business courses, or Business in its IT courses to give students an idea of what technology tools can do and what one can achieve with them.
Yes Ranier, this EVITA project is a very good initiative towards SMEs.
ReplyDeleteFurther, to what you stayed I would add that 90% of our businesses, as in mainland Europe - especially Germany, are family owned. Where the present Managing Director or Owner are not the founders, but have inherited their business from previous generations. These business people, who in the majority are in the maturity stage of their life, find it very difficult to change and accept new technologies. Only recently, I attended an interview with a well established Company in Malta where, the Managing director didn't even have a computer in the office! he was still dictating his letters/emails to his secretary, while the storekeeper was still using bin-cards to keep record of the stock, which runs in thousands of items.
In this case as with many others it is not a question of money, but more of a rejection and resistance to change or 'mis-trust' of new technologies.
So we welcome this new initiative by the 'Fondazzjoni Sir Temi Zammit' to increase the awarness and use of e-learning within our SMEs however, this must be marketed well so that these small business can embrace this 'new' idea and implement it in their work environment.
This does indeed make sense. If today’s entrepreneurs do not keep up with the ever-changing world of technology, they will run the risk of becoming less competitive. My husband and I ran our own small business for seventeen years. I, for one, used to run to the bank each time I needed a print-out of the company’s financial statement. Excel did not feature anywhere in my vocabulary and we used to employ an accountant to prepare the monthly salaries for only five employees.
ReplyDeleteIt may not be fair to generalize but for business owners over a certain age group, fear of change may be a huge stumbling block (as Zammit ascertains). For EVITA (or any other similar project) to be successful, one needs to keep in mind the different abilities of the participants and to cater to their needs. It is only in this way that the Maltese entrepreneurs can reap the highest possible benefits from such lauded projects.
As the saying goes, time is money. Through such initiatives, business owners can then invest more time:
• getting to grips with new techniques not only in Malta but on an international level,
• take part in exchange programmes
• buying their own equipment online
• learning about specialized fairs in other European countries
and a thousand other possibilities through the full use of ICT
Very pretty initiative, that is, always assuming that SME stands for 100+ employee firms who can afford to have one or two employees following this course. Quite frankly, whoever is behind this project simply doesn't understand the dynamics of SMEs in Malta or anywhere in the world really.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, this course certainly can't be addressed to entrepreneurs. In fact the word entrepreneurs never features in the Di-ve article or on the FTZ website (and rightly so if I may add). By now, people exibhiting entrepreneurial characteristics would have recognised the business potential of the web and today's entrepreneurs would be looking at Web 3.0 not Web 2.0. This course seems to be intended to the business owners (not necessarily entrepreneurs) who are still making do without any technology, and mind you, they are probably earning more bucks than I am! Such business owners can afford to have a secretary typing whatever they are dictating - that's how the job has always been done under their regime and that is how it will be done while they're still there. It is definitely a case of conscious resistance to change, but then why should these business owners invest in ICT today if the money is rolling in anyway?
ICT will then become a concern for their children - always given that the business survives to the next generation...
This project does sound excellent since it will be giving a chance to SMEs, who are not yet so IT oriented and who are not so familiar with the rapid technological advancements that are taking place, to make their businesses more competitive in the global arena.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the course will be delivered online, through an e-learning platform, will certainly facilitate life for owners who do want to increase their knowledge and make their businesses more competitive but who do not find the time to do so because of their working hours.