Organization and Application of Information Technologies in Enterprises of Herzegovina Region

Rapid development of information technologies has had a big influence on global economy and has activated the series of changes such as: globalization, liberalization, concurrency growth, market expansion, availability of market information to all segments etc. Also, the significance of the Information itself has become larger since information technologies are making the process of gathering, processing, storing and distributing of data much easier with the primary goal of possessing the right information at the right time and at the right place in the organization with minimization of costs. The achievement of this goal is leading to improvement in all segments of business activity such as: research and development of new products, process of supply, supply management, accounting and finance, marketing, sales, control, communication and decision making. Application of information technologies in the modern business does not only include buyingand owning PCs in the company, but also a presence of high quality organization and utilization of information technologies which is a guarantee for successful and competitive existence in the market. What kind of information system should be implemented is dependant on the company size, amount of information and data it operates with, the type of business, future plans etc. The objective of this research is to get the picture of level of enterprise informatization in Herzegovina with respect to amount and manner of information technology utilization. From these goals, the following hypotheses were set: H1 – information technologies are insufficiently used and are not appropriately organized in the companies of Herzegovina region H2 – there are substantial differences in utilization and organization of information technologies in the enterprises of Herzegovina region regarding their size This paper will present the research based on the original questionnaire from the project named "Research and need analysis for training and consultative services for small and medium enterprises in the Herzegovina region" which was carried out by the authors for the Herzegovina regional development agency. The research was conducted in the end of year 2008 and in the beginning of 2009 and it comprised 105 enterprises from the Herzegovina region which spans over Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republic of Srpska. The size of the enterprise (micro, small, medium and large) was defined through a two-dimensional criteria including two variables: number of employees and total income. The research is expected to confirm the hypothesis and create the foundation for undertaking the appropriate actions in order to change the current, unsatisfying situation.