Leveraging digital technologies to enhance business performance: an analysis of registered small-scale enterprises (SSES) in the retail sector of Nigeria

It is widely recognized in today’s globalised and knowledge-driven business environment that technology makes an important determinant of business performance. Surprisingly, Small Scale Enterprises (SSEs) in retail sector of Nigeria remain technologically stagnant despite the fact that leveraging digital technologies can enhance business scalability and improve overall performance. The study therefore accessed the available digital tools that SSEs in retail sector can leverage on in order to enhance their business performance. Using a survey research design, total populations of 118 registered specialty stores across the three senatorial district of Oyo State, Nigeria were purposively selected to constitute the sample size. While data were sourced primarily via questionnaire, a total of 118 copies were administered to all SSEs managers, and upon return, the data were subjected to descriptive and multiple regression analyses which were evaluated at 5% level of significance. The multiple regression results (R2 = 0.675 and p-value = 0.0001) implies that, digital technological tools significantly affected SSEs performance. The study concluded that integrating digital technologies has a positive and significant effect on level of their customers’ satisfaction, thus enhancing the overall business performance of Nigerian SSEs in retail sector. It is recommended that SSE owners and agencies for SSEs development should fund invest in technological innovation towards exploration of innovative ideas for improving the overall performance of SSEs in Nigeria.