Corporate mobile applications in Hungarian SMES: Management challenges and employee adoption

Informal Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a key role in their respective economies over the world particularly in the African continent. This paper reviews various theories on SMEs towards understanding the potential of the informal sector in the context of African countries. The paper uses a theoretical approach for the purpose of assessing the challenges that have affected the development of the informal SMEs sector over the years in both the developing and developed world. Economically developing countries in Africa pose unique challenges to informal SMEs development compared to the developed countries. The paper reviews the theories that define the rise to informality in Africa by identifying the key determinants for the emergence of informal SMEs. A conceptual framework for assessing informal SME’s potential for Africa is developed. The conceptual framework is based on the Fishbone diagram developed by Kaoru Ishikawa (1986). This paper discusses the intricacies of the applicability of the proposed conceptual framework to assess the potential of the informal SMEs in Africa and the way forward for the formalization debate.

The research is aimed to evaluate the internet marketing strategies in of life insurance companies in Ukraine. The insurance service in the time of digitalization faces scenarios of implementation in the marketing strategy on-line component. The main challenge for Ukrainian life insurance companies comparatively with the world practice is non-obligatory status of such kind of insurance contracts. So, on the one hand, costs of operation, regulatory pressures and inflexible technology infrastructure are increasing, and, on the other hand, economic recession does not allow to increase the number of insured persons, premiums and profit growth.
Sector of financial services is characterized by an increase in the level of competition, life insurance compelled to compete with pensions funds, banks and other financial institutions in order to defend their market share. Insurance companies marketing strategy determines how an insurer can best achieve its goals and objectives, keep existing customers and attract new ones with minimal costs.
Keeping all the above problems around the study would attempt to study all the factors that contributed to the effective marketing strategies. This paper presents different marketing strategies that are taken up in life insurance services keeping in view external and internal environment of the company.

From a global perspective, the business environment has become highly dynamic, unpredictable, and competitive due to external forces – mostly technology – that generate change. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of digital technologies on South African business sectors. The sample includes small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the KwaZulu-Natal province. Being qualitative by design, the study used semi-structured interviews for data collection, with eight interviews in the Durban area. SME managers were purposefully selected as participants based on their management positions in the business/company and that they oversee the business operation and understand the influence of digital transformation in the business. The interviews were then transcribed after data collection to determine any recurring themes. In the effectiveness of digital transformation, the study identified themes such as “gaining exposure” and “gaining effective sales figures” as a result of implementing digital transformation, which was indicated by six of eight participants. The findings showed that digital transformation significantly affects building customer relationships and ensuring easy accessibility of the business. The results further indicate online selling and digital marketing as the leading digital platforms successfully implemented by most South African SMEs. Lastly, the study revealed digital maintenance and rapid changes in technology as challenging factors. Moreover, the study recommends that South African SMEs implement more available digital technologies to gain additional exposure.