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

• Project management positively influences small to medium enterprise (SME) profit.
• SMEs using project management were more likely to report increases in profitability.
• IT skills were also shown to positively influence SME profitability.
• Project management and IT skills both also positively influence SME total sales.
• SMEs using project management averaged three times more sales than those that did not.

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.