The impact of business type and sector, location and annual turnover on competitive intelligence practice of small and medium-sized enterprises

Abstract

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) contribute much to job creation, poverty eradication, economic development and growth. Countries rely on SMEs for wealth creation and social wellbeing of their citizens. Moreover, SMEs contribute to the global competitiveness of a country. For SMEs to continue offering all these benefits to the country, they must be competitive in the midst of global competitive pressure. To gain competitive advantage, enterprises of different sizes practice Competitive Intelligence (CI). While CI practise has been widely researched in large enterprise, there is lack of CI practice research in SMEs. This research establishes the impact of business type and sector, location and annual turnover on the competitive intelligence practise of SMEs. The research was quantitative in nature and a self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from owners/managers of SMEs.