Business Digitalization in Albania: Where do SMEs Stand?

Abstract

The ICTs sector in Albania has marked some considerable progress with the market liberalization, the expansion of the Internet use, the improvements in e-government services and in the policy framework (EC, Progress Report 2012; NSDI, Draft, 2014-2020). The ICTs companies operate mainly at the domestic level, but there are growing efforts to gain better recognition at the regional and international level. The ICTs companies operating in Tirana are mainly registered as SMEs and work in the local market. This paper explores the level of smart business in the ICTs sector in Albania by looking in particular at the current level, future trends and underpinning reasons for the smart business development. The paper provides a framework analysis for smart business as outlined in the survey of literature and explores its contextualization in the ICT sector in Albania by looking at the readiness of the sector to develop smart business. The paper adopts a quantitative methodology and uses both primary and secondary data. The primary data are collected through online structured survey of the ICTs sector in Albania and the secondary data include reports, articles and studies on the ICTs market in Albania.