KOB ’LER N REKABET GüCü VE E-T CARETE GE SüREC : B R MODEL NER S = THE COMPETITIVENESS OF SMEs AND THE TRANSITION PROCESS TO E-COMMERCE: A PROPOSITION OF A MODEL

Today, the critical factor in the evaluation of the competitiveness and development levels of the countries and the industries, is the speed of processing and producing information. For this reason, the main goal, of countries and industries to gain competitiveness, is to shift from producing more goods and services to producing more information and technology. This can be provided by the existing information technologies and developing those technologies. As the quantity of the information that needs to be processed increases, it becomes a necessity to set up and develop the information technologies for the companies and especially for the SMEs, which are very important for the Turkish Economy. The business activities that were carried on with the conventional instruments in the past can be done by the new information technologies today. This constitutes a factor that increases the competitiveness of the establishments. Within this context, the aim of this article is to put forth the effect of the quality, cost, speed, innovation and productivity advantages provided by e-commerce especially to SMEs, on the competitiveness of the firms. And in this sense, a model is developed for the SMEs to facilitate and guide the transition to this new system.