One key assumption of the model is that it will be the entrepreneurial SMEs which have explicit growth strategies and more consequent openness to external events and opportunities, that will progress more surely from one stage to the next. Implicitly embedded in this model are the processes of consolidation (operational learning, knowledge of new routines and capabilities, new working relations and skill, etc.) that need to be completed at each stage for readiness to grow at personal and organizational levels. Even though many SMEs agree that these technologies will bring about improved communication with customer and suppliers and improved business efficiency, this belief does not impel them from one stage to the next. They need a new mindset developed from personal confidence and concrete evidence from prior experience, plus strongly convincing evidence of the potential, for example, Of an ICT application to increase turnover or broaden their customer base. The motivation to adopt new ICTs is often to achieve goals other than or in addition to the theoretical benefits of e-business (which are generally held to include improved communication between partner, customer and knowledge management, transformation of internal business processes, security from confidentiality and fraud, and so on). In the earliest stages, adoption may be an emotional rather than rational process. Indeed, only a minority of the business implications of ICT and e-commerce for the firm (Wilson and Dean, 2000; Quayle, 2001)