Small to medium-sized businesses are increasingly satisfied with the availability of information and communications technology but still wrestle with the challenge of securing the skills and expertise necessary for sustained performance, the SME Survey 2006 revealed.

The survey, which polled 6 000 owners of South African small to medium-sized businesses on the factors which affect their enabling environment, found that the introduction of more options for connectivity as well as increased competition in the telecommunications environment had a positive effect on the SME market.

Principal researcher Arthur Goldstuck said that the total respondents rating access to general IT infrastructure - which for the first time had been separated from access to Internet infrastructure - as important had declined from last year. Some 71% of respondents rated it important as important (2005: 78%), 9% saying it is unimportant (2005: 7%) and 19% were neutral (2005: 14%).

The reduction in the percentage of respondents rating IT infrastructure as important may indicate that as technology becomes a standard resource for doing business, it is not considered as an opportunity for competitive advantage.

The Internet is also not yet considered a 'must have' for many SME businesses, Goldstuck said. Some 68% rated access to Internet infrastructure as important, 9% unimportant while 21% were neutral.

Respondents were also asked how satisfied they were with their access to resources, hence providing a satisfaction index (SI) for access to the resources they regarded as most important,â€