USING THE INTERNET IN THE ACTIVITIES OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING IN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES DOI:10.5773/rai.v1i1.526

Abstract

This article aims to understand the importance of systematic environmental scanning in SMEs (small and medium enterprises), whereas the understanding of how companies seek and use information from the Internet is of great relevance to this process, keeping them more competitive in their market. For this was a literature review of environmental scanning, evaluating that several generic models are described in the literature, although many don’t direct their efforts for small and medium enterprises. The methodology used was a descriptive single case study to present the procedures performed by a company that uses data from the Internet in its environmental scanning, comparing the practice used with the steps of the model described in the literature. The results showed that the Internet is used as an important source for environmental scanning of this company, but the search for on-line information happens without systematic, intuitively and reactively. This article contributes to help SMEs to perceive the importance of scanning the environment and begin to adopt a formal model that systematizes the search and use of on-line information, making them more strategic to their business.