A Small and Medium Enterprise in Nigeria Business Environment - Dissertation Example

The last few decades have witnessed an ‘insurgency’ in the growth of global economy. However, everyone did not have the opportunity to experience this revolution of growth. Around 65 % of the global population, still lives on $4 per day (Kramer, Jenkins and Katz, 2007). The scenario further worsened with the lack of opportunities to carry out developmental activities. The business community in this context has a major role to play and has the capability to create these opportunities. The information and communication technology (ICT) has been a powerful tool as well as acted as a catalyst to address the interest and needs of low income groups of the developing countries. In the last 20 years, the role of ICT in expanding economic opportunities and providing competitive advantages to a firm has been highly acknowledged by experts from every sector of business (Butcher, 2011).

Information and Communication technology (ICT) is technology used for improving the efficiency of the operation of an organization (OECD, 2005). It is often regarded as a technology used for retrieving and processing information. ICT not only plays crucial roles in organizations, but has also become an essential part in the daily life of many people (NCCA, 2013). Furthermore, with the rapid development of ICT, significant changes in economical, social and political field have been witnessed. However, the importance of ICT is much more when seen from an organizational perspective. The major components of ICT are networking devices, computers, and storage devices (Radunovic, 2010). Yet, there are debates over the effectiveness of ICT in every type firms. Scholars often argue that that the effectiveness of ICT depends upon the nature and type of business. This study, therefore intends to investigate whether, ICT offers equal benefits to every organizations, irrespective of the size, nature and type of business.

As mentioned earlier, the principal purpose of this study is to examine the benefits of Information and Communication Technology in businesses. In order to address these objectives, the study has selected Henrich International Associates (HIA), a small and medium enterprise (SME) based on Nigeria. Therefore, before getting further deep into the study, brief introduction of the chosen organization is presented below.

Henrich International Associates (HIA) is company involved in the marketing and distribution of workshop equipments and tools. The company belongs to the SME sector of Nigeria. It was incorporated in the year 1981 and is currently headquartered at Lagos, Nigeria. HIA started its business operation with only 50 employees, but with the passage of time it turned out as one of the major players in the industry.