Small and medium enterprises’ business sustainability based on the Industry 4.0 internet of things adoption: a Malaysian Bumiputera case study

Abstract

Companies of all sizes, including Small and Medium Enterprises, have been left with few choices for preparing for and implementing changes. This research gathered information to provide the theoretical framework on the determinants that Malaysian Bumiputera SMEs are relying on for their decision to adopt or not to adopt IoT in their business operations. Bumiputera refers to the indigenous people of Malaysia. The study utilised a cross-disciplinary study design. The data was obtained from company proprietors in Malaysia that operate in the category of Bumiputera SMEs and was statistically analysed using IBM's SPSS and AMOS software. According to the initial findings, it can be seen that respondents are very excited about the benefits of IoT, but lack the imagination to pioneer the arrangement. Furthermore, even though respondents are unconcerned about IoT, it gives the appearance of being unsure, leading them to think further on whether to trust it or not. It was also shown that top organizations have an increasingly good intuition of IoT, but also a progressively negative intuition of it. It is recommended that SMEs holistically, especially Bumiputera SMEs, acquire more knowledge and be prepared to expand the grasp of productive factors of IoT in Malaysia

Keywords

• small medium enterprises (smes)
• bumiputera smes
• business sustainability
• industry 4.0
• the internet of things (iot)
• toe framework