Most of the SMEs in the electronics sector have specialized on service and repair of selected appliances or gadgets. Only a few enterprises offer a wider range of services to their customers on a lower level.
Electronic appliances and gadgets are more and more complex and are equipped with highly integrated circuits, components and functional units. MCPs feel challenged and face difficulties in keeping up with new technological developments. Radical changes and consequences for the business activities of the informal sector can be demonstrated on the following sample:
In the TV technology CRT technology and analog circuits were for the least 4 decades the state of the art technology. Since a few years, flat screens with LED, LCD and Plasma technology flood the market, “box type TVs” are going to disappear in a very short time. The new digital and microprocessor based technology requires a different approach to fault finding strategies, different practical skills and theoretical background. MCPs stated that they face big challenges to service and repair the main boards of the new TV technology.
As MCPs in the field of electronics have specialized their services on a limited variety of products already in the past, the use of new technologies is going to further encourage this process. Offering and executing service and repair jobs of new electronic requires a certain level of knowledge and know how about a particular application. In some cases special tools and instruments are needed to trace and rectify male functions. The necessary investment can’t be made available for any electronic application. An important factor is also the availability and the access to spare parts for the products. The capacity to maintain a stock of spare parts for a wide range of products might be far beyond the financial capacity of many MSE. All this factors contribute to an increasing tendency of specialization of MSEs in the field of electronics.
