A comprehensive survey of close to five percent of Jordan’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) shows a satisfactory adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) by businesses in the Kingdom. Nonetheless, Jordanian SMEs still need to have more focused technology adoption that would better streamline their businesses, reported the Arab Advisors Group.
During the study, Arab Advisors Group assessed the supply side and demand side of the ICT products and services amongst Jordanian SMEs through a primary research and survey-based approach.
On the supply side, the analysis encompassed the vendors and operators for technology, Internet and software products in the market. On the demand side, the study included conducting extensive interviews with 247 small and medium enterprises across the major economic sectors in the country in Jordan’s four main cities of Amman, Zarqa, Irbid and Aqaba.
“Analysing the survey results shows that there is a somewhat big disparity between businesses in Amman and those outside Amman in terms of their technology adoption”, Arab Advisors Group senior analyst, Sami Sunna reported. “For example, while 95 percent of companies in Amman had PCs, the ratio was around 70 percent in Zarqa and less than 25 percent in Irbid. The disparities are also present across the board in Internet, web pages, leased line and ADSL adoption by businesses in Amman and outside Amman,” he added.
The study shows that 22.3 percent of Jordanian SMEs did not have Personal Computers (PCs). Of the companies that have PCs, 51.6 percent have a LAN set up in the office. In regards to Internet use, more than 66 percent of the companies use the Internet, while this percentage reaches more than 85 percent of the companies that have PCs.
Some 58.2 of the companies that use Internet started using it more than three years ago. 92 percent of companies in Amman use the Internet, which is far higher than the percentages in Irbid, Zarqa and Aqaba. More than 74.5 percent of the companies that use the Internet have Internet dialup accounts, with only 15.2 percent having Internet leased lines, and 15.2 percent having Internet ADSL. A little more than a quarter of Jordanian SMEs have a web page.
The study was commissioned by the Information Technology Association of Jordan (int@j) and funded by the National Fund for Enterprise Support (NAFES) and seven participating organizations and companies.
SMEs were defined as companies employing five to 100 people. The sample was randomly selected and proportionately represented the SMEs in the four cities and across the major economic sectors. The economic sectors covered were tourism, trade, finance, insurance, real estate, construction, manufacturing, transportation, and agriculture.
“The Arab Advisors Group surveyed 247 companies in the four cities. This represents a sample size of 4.7 percent of the working population which allows for less than eight percent margin of error with 99 percent confidence level,” said Arab Advisors Group President, Jawad Abbassi. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
