E-commerce training for SMEs

E-commerce offers companies tremendous opportunities to improve their business performance in new and innovative ways. However, its potential benefit would only be realised by capable managers who can deal with these emerging technologies and implement them wisely. A skills shortage has been categorised as one of the challenges facing global e-commerce by Bingi and Khamalah (2000). The demand for highly knowledgeable and skilled managers and workloads places enormous pressure upon companies to improve or update their current knowledge and skills. This is particularly important in small and medium enterprises (SMEs),1 as compared with their larger counterparts, they are often described as “lacking the expertise needed to set up the technologies necessary, despite having a great deal to gain from doing so” (Anonymous, 1998, p. 52). Training is often seen as the most effective way to help SMEs to cope with the increasing demand on improving their skills, while not increasing staffing.