Small and medium enterprises and the effectiveness of technology Essay

Small and medium enterprises and the effectiveness of technology business incubators in Saudi Arabia - Essay Example The combination of all these forces has set the pace for the progress in global economy and defined the way firms have to operate at the global level. What is also important to note that the combination of these forces has actually resulted into economic progress, equality, democratization, equality in income distribution as well as a renewed focus on knowledge growth? Technology specially has made knowledge based progress an important element of new era where only those can survive who have access to knowledge and who can basically innovate and generate new knowledge. The flourishing of technology has been made possible due to an enormous increase in the computing power coupled with the reduced communication costs which has allowed technology to actually flourish and dominate the current market place. (Phillips, 2002) It has been argued that the technology business incubators are the necessary equipments in order to achieve progress through technology led knowledge base enterprises. Different studies clearly outlines that the use of technology business incubators not only allow the firms to gain access to the technology but also improve their chances of survival thus making them stronger enough to better manage risk and uncertainty. Rice (1995) outlined that the basic purpose of business incubators is to help support the process of creation of new business ventures. This focus therefore categorically suggest that the role of business incubators is only limited to the providing of necessary support to the new ventures to become self sustaining and develop enough to manage risk effortlessly. (Rice, 1995) The basic nature of a business incubator is to provide the shared support, training,... According to the research findings business incubators are formed to provide support and resources to the new start up businesses in order to upgrade their ability to survive. Numerous studies have suggested that when new start up firms is passed through incubators, their chances for survival increase. Technology business incubators are focused on providing support for the technology oriented start up businesses to provide them necessary support. Studies have suggested the role of different stakeholders in formation, development and running of business incubators. Further, studies have also been mentioned which focused on different criteria which are used by business incubators to select the firms for support and development. Developing countries face different factors and environment under which they have to develop their technology business incubators. Developing countries like Saudi Arabia therefore will have to improve their human resource base as well as upgrade the resource lev el of its universities to make them equipped enough to provide support. Further, the need for appointing appropriate management to run incubators has also been discussed. This has been discussed with special reference to developing countries and how they can actually visualize different factors which may be considered as necessary to ensure that SMEs are duly supported by technology business incubators. The failure to properly integrate such factors into policy response may not result into desired results of social change and economic progress for developing countries.