El grup i2TIC publica dos estudis sobre l'adopció i ús de les TIC a les microempreses del sector del comerç i del turisme, 2010.

This is a pioneering research that studies the structure and value elements of trade and tourism microenterprises in Catalonia from the analysis of the primary source of information.
The study supervised by Dr. Joan Torrent, has been carried out by researchers of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on ICTs (i2TIC) attached to the Interdisciplinary Internet Institute (IN3) of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) in collaboration with the FOBSIC.

MAIN RESULTS OF TRADE MICROENTERPRISES SECTOR: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Some of the strengths of trade microenterprises sector are: 

- High level of education in the wholesale microenterprises subsector and in the smaller microenterprises dimension trade. 
- Strong implementation of auto programmable work practices. 
- External elements (financing, promotion and advertising, strategic change and R & D as improvement of the activity. 
- Positive evolution of electronic trade, especially in the B2B (purchases). 

Some of the weaknesses which needed to strengthen the impact of competitive activity based microenterprise trade are: 

- Encourage training in micro-stock retail trade and higher dimension. 
- Extend digital competences, both managers and employees in educational contexts. 
- Improve the stability of labour relations.
- More knowledge of grants and support public policies.
- Larger presence of markets and international client networks.

   

MAIN RESULTS OF TOURISM MICROENTERPRISES SECTOR: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
 
Some of the strengths of micro tourism sector are: 

- High level of entrepreneurial skills, strong presence of women entrepreneurs and young highly educated managers.  
- Customer orientation and dynamics of product innovation. 
- Positive evolution of electronic business, especially in the B2C (Sales). 
- Significant association between the intensity of ICT use and work training, job stability, innovation, positive trend of factoring and internationalization of sales.  
 
Some of the weaknesses which needed to strengthen the impact of competitive activity based tourism micro-enterprise are: 
 
- Extend the education of workers.
- Improve the digital skills of managers and workers. 
- Encourage the intensive ICT use by the employees. 
- Reorient the work and labour relations by objectives. 
- Extend the innovative practices to the least dimension microenterprises.  
- Origin and formal external provision of ICT goods and services.