ICT Operational Risk Management (ORM) and Performances of a Financial SME

This paper investigates the relationship between ICT operational risk management (ORM) and the performance of an SME. To achieve this, this research investigated five specific elements, namely: the principal causes of ICT ORM failure in an SME; change management requirements; characteristic(s) of business information; challenges posed by new ORM solutions; and evaluation models for understanding the value of ICT ORM in SMEs. Following a literature review, an electronic survey consisting of closed ended questions was developed. This was distributed at a financial company in the Eastern Cape and 107 responses were gathered. Factor analysis was used as a data reduction technique to reduce the large number of related variables to a more manageable number. The empirical evidence presented indicated that a significant proportion of the aforementioned variables have impact on the performance of an SME. Therefore, this paper indicates that there is a strategic impact of ICT ORM on SME performance.