Skills that improve profitability: The relationship between project management, IT skills, and small to medium enterprise profitability

It is commonly assumed that using project management and IT skills are good for business performance. This research explored this assumption by testing whether the use of project management and IT skills have a positive affect on business' total sales and profitability. The research data was drawn from two longitudinal Government surveys of small to medium enterprises in Australia. Models were created to describe the relationship between project management, IT skills, profitability and total sales using multiple linear regression and binary logistic regression. The results show that when controlling for the influence of other business skills, project management and IT skills have a significant positive influence on sales and profitability. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. APM and IPMA. All rights reserved.