Abstract:
The rapid speed at which technology is changing has led to a volatile business ecosystem. Due to challenges brought by technological disruptions that open doors to various kinds of risks, companies find themselves on the back-foot of keeping up with the change as they race to stay in business. This opens up opportunities for consulting firms as their services are sought after by other entities to address skills shortages or improve competency. This exploratory paper was conducted to get a thorough understanding
of how small IT firms (SMEs) manage risks. A case study research design was used together with qualitative methods. The SMEs that formed part of the paper were selected by purposive sampling, with semi-structured interviews being used as the data collection method. To analyse the data, thematic analysis techniques were followed. The findings of the paper show that technology disruptions highly influence the environment of the IT consulting firms. As disruptions sweep through their business environment, SMEs are confronted with various risks that affect their business models, operations and human capital. As a result, SMEs have to deal with financial challenges, more consumer influence and high turnover among the workforce as the aftermath of disruptions.
Keywords: Business model, Changing business environments, Customer expectation, IT consulting, SMEs,Technological disruptions
