The Impact of Digital Platforms on SMEs’ Development and Performance

This chapter explores the impact of digital platforms on online micro and small enterprise development. The research examines how digital platforms enable the creation of online micro and small business in Nigeria and its impact on developing micro and small businesses in Nigeria. The research further explores challenges that are associated with adopting digital platforms for micro and small business development in Nigeria. The research approach adopts a qualitative semi-structured research methodology to explore the research questions and objectives. The methodology consists of a review of the key concepts related to research and, components of appropriate interview questions linked with gaps in knowledge and study objectives. The main findings from the study highlighted the importance of digital skills and social media management as crucial factors that enhance the development and sustenance of micro businesses that adopt online platforms in Nigeria. The findings highlighted the importance of trust and building online customer confidence, thus individuals and entrepreneurs developing small-scale businesses need to ensure customer confidence through feedback and reviews on those platforms. The findings highlighted that most challenges facing micro and small businesses adopting digital platform include trust because there are many fake products and imposters on the internet. Thus, making videos of oneself alongside the product builds customer confidence. This challenge is different from challenges identified in previous kinds of literature such as lack of power supply and inadequate infrastructures. The study contributes new knowledge and understanding on how digital platforms impact the development of online micro business in Nigeria. The study fills the void in previous digital platform and micro-business literature based on research in the Nigerian context. The research advances knowledge on digital platform literature, specifically to social media platforms, by concluding that individuals and entrepreneurs who wish to start developing online micro and small business need to acquire digital skills and social media platform management knowledge. Theoretically, the study integrates ideas from existing literature on transactional platforms, social media platforms, and micro and small enterprises to develop a digital platform adoption framework for micro and small business in Nigeria. In practice, the finding can be applied to higher education institutions and informal training that will enable individuals and entrepreneurs to acquire skills for the adoption of digital platforms that support the development of micro and small businesses in Nigeria.