Most national SMEs believe that the crisis has affected their business quite a bit and almost half think that the economic environment will continue over the next two years. These are some of the conclusions of an online study promoted by Sage in the Portuguese market.
The analysis, carried out with the aim of detecting the technological innovation potential of these companies in areas such as management software and, at the same time, assessing the impact of the crisis among the Portuguese business fabric, also reveals that in the last two years companies have invested less in technological infrastructure.
According to the study, 60 percent of the surveyed SMEs reported having spent less than 5,000 euros on hardware and software products and services, while only eight percent of the respondents invested more than 20,000 euros.
«We have [como fornecedor de soluções] to know how to deal with this reality and find an offer that suits the current very limited budgets «, said Jorge Santos Carneiro, CEO of Sage Portugal, during the presentation of the results of the study.
For 66%, the crisis is affecting the business a lot, and 47 percent of the respondents believe that the economic and financial situation will continue over the next two years. The remaining 50 percent think it will get better or worse, at equal weight.
Asked about the end of the crisis, the majority of respondents believe that the current situation will only improve after 2012 (54%), while 16 percent think that the recovery will still arrive in 2012. For 14 percent, this may already happen next year .
SMEs’ perception of anti-crisis measures is negative, with 87 percent of respondents agreeing little (57%) or nothing (29%) with the measures implemented until April this year – when the survey was conducted – for work around the situation.
The negative opinion prevails when support is mentioned, with 93 percent of companies feeling «little» or «nothing» supported in this difficult phase.
