Potentials and Risks of using ICT in SMEs

ICT offer huge potentials to improve the SMEs competitiveness in the Information Society. Nevertheless, there are still problems in introducing ICT into SMEs and it is extremely important to understand and analyse the reasons behind this. In this paper, we illustrate an investigation on the potentials and risks of using ICT in SMEs, real and as perceived by the decision people in the companies, that we have done in the framework of a transnational European partnership. Results of this study are based on direct experiences of partners from 5 European countries in introducing and using ICT in SMEs (for distance training, distance consultancy, lifelong learning, e-commerce); direct experience of the partners in using ICT for communication inside the partnership itself; feedback from the SMEs involved in the partnerships as beneficiaries.