By A. P. Shemi and C.T. Procter

In 2013, A. P. Shemi from the University of Botswana and C.T. Procter of the University of Salford (UK), wrote an insightful paper titled the ‘Challenges of E-Commerce Adoption in SMEs: An Interpretive Case Study of Botswana’ that was published in the Botswana Journal of Business Volume 6 No. 1 (2013).

This article provides historical insights into the present-day operating environment of commerce in Botswana for the small business, showing how it looked like and recommendations then.

The researchers wrote;

Although electronic commerce (e-commerce) has been a popular term in business and industry over the past decade, its application to developing country small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has generally been scanty and lacking depth. This paper aims to respond to this paucity by investigating the challenges that confront SMEs in e-commerce adoption in the Botswana context. The study is grounded in a qualitative and interpretive approach to unearth social and contextual issues in six selected firms from the ICT and Tourism sectors. Multiple methods of data collection were conducted using unstructured and semi-structured face-to-face interviews, web-site analysis, observation and document analysis. The challenges discovered are characteristic of the managerial, technological and environmental issues that confront each firm. The paper concludes that various combinations of challenges describe e-commerce adoption in the six firms. Moreover, both B2B and B2C e-commerce are minimally developed.

Implications of findings point to the need for improved e-commerce policy, and for the SMEs to engage in strategic collaboration that can enhance their ability to innovate.

This study has investigated the challenges that confront SMEs in the adoption of e-commerce in six cases in Botswana, by employing the interpretive paradigm approach. The research approach favoured the socio-technical context that prevailed in the organisations at the time of the study. The SMEs had various levels of entry and appreciation of ICT. This implied a natural setting ensued and no variables were fixed or manipulated. However, it was necessary that key managers and/or owners of the firms were knowledgeable about ICT and e-commerce and how it could deliver business value to their organisations.

Results show that contextual issues existing in the organisations define the challenges in e-commerce adoption in the SMEs. The most common challenge facing six SMEs is the ‘suppliers and customers preference for traditional way of doing business using fax, telephone/mobile and email.’ This was followed by the problem of the slow speed of Internet which was mentioned by four SMEs. Other problems were: the preference for personal contacts; lack of skilled manpower; the cost of hiring and acquiring skilled IT personnel; cost of operating Internet; the recession in US/Worldwide; lack of regulatory framework; customer preference for ‘feel and touch’ features of products; lack of ICT and e-commerce knowledge; lack of strategy and perception by owner manager, and lack of time to devote to website improvement.

The results show that both B2B and B2C are minimally developed among the SMEs selected, and challenges of e-commerce adoption are generally spread across the Technology, Organisational and Environment areas, which corroborates the TOE framework (Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990). The stagnated networked readiness status of Botswana (GITR, 2012) can be seen to be reflected in the challenges affecting e-commerce adoption in the SMEs.

Based on the findings discussed in the paper, this study recommends a speedy prioritization of e-commerce challenges in the country in order to resolve and provide solutions for the business environment, especially SMEs. The role of the GOB has become necessarily crucial in determining the extent of e-commerce capitalization in the country. This is because the GOB is a key customer to most SMEs in the sample and as well as a policy formulator and regulator for e-commerce activities. E-commerce reforms need to be expedited and the Internet provision needs to be enhanced. The results also point to the need for SME managers to engage in more strategic collaboration with business partners in the global, regional, and local environment to seek areas of mutual learning and growth. More conferences, seminars, or workshops are also recommended to provide learning and exchange of e-commerce ideas.