Impact of E-Business Technology and ICT Skills on SMEs Competitive Advantage

The adoption of e-business technologies and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) competencies in the modern business world has emerged as an important competitive advantage factor, especially to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). In spite of their potential, most SMEs are still constrained by issues of disadvantaged digital capabilities, lack of technological infrastructure and technological resistance to change which negate their capacity to use e-business tools to strategically grow. The central aim of this theoretical research is to examine the effect of e-business technology and ICT competencies on the competitive advantage of SMEs. The study is based on secondary sources such as scholarly journals, books, and institutional reports among other reliable sources to generalize the existing theories and empirical evidence. The analysis shows that adoption of e-business technology increases efficiency in operations and market penetration, as well as customer interaction, which are reinforced by ICT skills, as a result of which sustainable competitiveness is achieved. To improve the performance of SMEs, the study suggests that the companies should invest in training ICT and use scalable e-business platforms. The paper concludes that digital resilience and long-term competitive advantage in the digital economy is based on the technological capability and human ICT competence integration.