The application of a process based model for IS check-up within SMEs

The focus on production activities, together with their limited investment budget, often make SME entrepreneurs exclude Information Systems (IS) issues when planning organizational development. It is questionable whether anyone in a small company considers IS efficiency, effectiveness and strategic alignment as issues. As a consequence, SMEs could greatly benefit from an IS check-up tool supporting the monitoring of IS adequacy and the decision making process about IS development. In order to pursue these aims, the literature suggests considering determinants such as the strategic importance of business processes as well as the extent to which information and communication technologies (ICT) support them. This paper proposes a new check-up model specifically designed according to SME requirements. It aims at evaluating the alignment between the company strategy and the ICT support, highlighting possibile weaknesses on the IS management process. The model has been tested on a sample of 366 companies through direct invterviews with the entrepreneurial MD, the CIO and/or the process managers. The paper reports the main results of the analysis of collected data