Boosting Small and Medium Enterprises Performance in Nigeria through Mobile Commerce

The evolution of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has brought about various changes and advancement in the world of business. Currently mobile phones can do lot more than just making and receiving calls. They are now used to further enhance business activities such as buying and selling, banking, marketing and much more. This paper examined the effect of m-commerce on SMEs in Nigeria and how its performance can be boosted. Ordinary least square regression was employed to measure the extent to which the small and medium enterprises were influenced. The results revealed that small and medium enterprises in Nigeria have not sufficiently adopted m-commerce in doing business. In order to achieve the cashless economy campaign by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), adopting m-commerce for small and medium enterprises is inevitable. The study recommends that Nigerian microfinance banks should develop mobile site and provide banking services to small and medium enterprises since they are directly involved with them. Keywords: Mobile commerce (M-commerce), Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Small Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) to hypermarkets: critical quality aspects in delivering food and beverage products

Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) play a significant role in the economic growth and development in Malaysia. According to the Malaysian Standard of Industrial Classification (2008), food and beverage is a sub-sector of the manufacturing sector, which is the second largest concentration of SMEs. This study focused on SME entrepreneurs in order to gather their thoughts on imparting quality in their products to penetrate the Malaysian hypermarkets. Primary data were gathered from 426 SME entrepreneurs using a structured questionnaire. Independent and dependent variables were formed on a five-point Likert-type scale which specifies the strength of the respondents’ agreement or disagreement with the statements provided. Several statistical tools and techniques, such as descriptive statistics, Zero Order Karl Pearson’s correlation and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) multiple regression analysis were used to analyse the findings and to draw conclusions. The study revealed that food and beverage entrepreneurs gave more emphasis on the esthetics aspect of the products to expand their businesses and to enter hypermarkets. Entrepreneurs who have yet to supply their products to hypermarket focused on more aspects (e.g. product performance, food features, conformance to specifications and reliability of the product) than entrepreneurs who have already been supplying their products to hypermarkets. The findings of this study will assist SME entrepreneurs and the Malaysian SME authority who are working towards expanding their products, especially on food and beverages and for those thinking of penetrating hypermarkets with their products

The influence of the six domains of entrepreneurial ecosystem on the Malaysian small and medium enterprises performance

The government of Malaysia has ensured Small, Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Entrepreneurial Ecosystem is able to increase entrepreneurial activities. Blueprints such as the Malaysian SME Masterplan 2012-2020 are among the notable efforts to aid the development, sustainability, and growth of SMEs. However, the SMEs are still entangled with issues and challenges which is reflected in the high failure rate, close to 60 percent and on a constant rise. Therefore, this study focuses on exploring and examining the SME Entrepreneurial Ecosystem to present a framework and to examine the influence of the domains of the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem on the SME Performance. Mixed-method research design was employed. For qualitative method, a total of 131 entrepreneurs were interviewed, and for quantitative design a total of 877 entrepreneurs were surveyed. The qualitative finding resulted in a detailed framework with the discovery of a new domain called Entrepreneurial Networking, and 6 other domains with 23 sub-categories respectively. The quantitative finding indicated the ecosystem is positively correlated to performance, with Pearson correlation coefficient of r = 0.682. And the other variables indicated r = 0.593 (Policy), r = 0.475 (Finance), r = 0.550 (Culture), r = 0.556 (Support), r = 0.651 (Human Capital) and r = 0.572 (Market). Human capital (0.651) was identified to have a strong positive correlation towards the performance. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis indicated that the model explained 51% of the variance (R2 = 0.509, F (6.870) = 150.373, p < 0.001). Human Capital had strongest (β = 0.345, p< .001). Hence, the study revealed that the domains have substantial contribution to the success of SMEs. This study discovered the framework for Malaysian entrepreneurial ecosystem, discovered a new domain, and its influence on performance

Customer relationship marketing in the UK Muslim SMEs : an Islamic perspective

This research is to investigate the influence of Islam on the practice of customer relationship marketing (CRM) in UK Muslim SMEs. Due to the very limited number of studies available, which interrelate ‘customer relationship marketing’ (CRM) and UK Muslim SMEs, there is a need to address the gap in the literature through comprehensive and extensive research, in these two areas. The research examines the understanding of CRM from the Islamic perspective, and the influence of Islamic belief in the practice of CRM amongst UK Muslim SMEs. Moreover, the research examines the factors needed for developing CRM for UK Muslim SMEs as well as the behaviours and expectations of UK Muslim SMEs regarding CRM. The literature research in the subject areas: Islamic view of customer, customer relationship-marketing, UK SMEs and Muslim UK SMEs retrieved six important relational factors (trust, equality, brotherhood, greetings, ethics, and honesty) that are currently absent in the existing CRM literature. Furthermore, justice, commitment and communication have been discussed considerably in both conventional marketing literature as well as in the Islamic literature from the “sayings of prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)” and from the holy “Quran”. Adopting qualitative research methodology, this study conducted twenty-five semi-structured interviews with UK Muslim SME owners to achieve the aim and seek answers to the research questions. Applying thematic analysis techniques, the research findings revealed that amongst the Muslim SME owners, partial understanding of theoretical CRM exists of both the conventional and Islamic perspectives of CRM. Nevertheless, in reality the factors retrieved through Islamic literature were appreciated, influenced and practiced by Muslim SME owners for building and developing CRM. This study also expands the body of knowledge in the field of CRM from the perspectives of Islamic teachings and values. Finally, a conceptual framework is proposed consisting of the related factors as relevant for UK Muslim SMEs