The Relation Between Adoption of Information and Communication Technologies and Marketing Innovation as a Key Strategy to Improve Business Performance

Understanding how capacities and resources of companies are crucial factors to improve business performance and competitiveness is a major issue for academics, policy, and decisionmakers. The purpose of this research is to analyze the effects of the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on marketing innovation as a key strategy to increase the business performance of small- and medium-sized Mexican manufacturing companies. A gap exists in the literature regarding the full understanding of the simultaneous relationship among ICTs, marketing innovation and business performance. For this reason, a quantitative approach and cross-sectional design were applied through Structural Equation Modelling, in which a simple random sampling technique and a self-administered questionnaire was used to gather data from a sample of 230 business owners in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico. The results indicate that adopting ICTs has a significant influence on marketing innovation. Moreover, marketing innovation showed a considerable impact on business performance. Therefore, decision-makers must pay special attention to the adoption of ICTs, as they are of vital importance for the development of marketing innovations and competitive advantage. Decision-makers must also use their resources and capabilities in innovations that have an impact on the sales strategy, design and promotion of their new products as well as the redesign of existing ones to achieve higher levels of competitiveness.