Cloud computing adoption and business performance in small and medium enterprises

¶ … cloud-Computing technologies to increase business performance in SMEs

In the professional and academic press, the term cloud computing is commonly used to refer to accessing services like email online. Cloud computing is defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as a model that enables on-demand and convenient network access to a shared pool of computing resources that can be released and provisioned with minimal service provider interaction (Mell & Grance, 2011). This definition can refer to anything from file storage, email in the cloud, or an ERP system. Cloud computing has the potential to offer an SME that opportunity to increase its performance, sustain its competitiveness, and adapt to the changing market needs. The majority of research has focused on the benefits that SMEs have gained after adopting cloud computing. However, the major question that most researchers have asked is, how does cloud computing increase business performance for SMEs? This question has not been tackled fully, and only limited information is available. Adopting cloud computing would allow an SME to increase employee performance by enabling them to access and work from any location provided they have an active internet connection.

Literature review

Quinn and Cleary (December 2014) focused on the benefits that SMEs have gained after implementing cloud computing for their finance/accounting function only. The researchers have shown that the SMEs that have managed to implement cloud computing for their finance function are able to manage this business function more effectively and easily. The finance department has also managed to improve its functionality and cut down its costs. Their research is limited because it only focused on one business function, which does not fully demonstrate that the same results would be replicated if implemented for the whole organization. We feel that researching the SMEs that have implemented cloud computing for all their major functions would increase the available data on improving business performance. The researchers have also raised some questions that would form the basis for further research like the benefits employees gain from using cloud computing. The lack of information on how business is improved is another question they have raised. In order for a business to be successful, it needs to ensure that there is business continuity. In case of any disaster, a business should be able to continue offering its services to clients, and this would only be possible if the SME is using cloud computing technologies.

Sahandi, Alkhalil, and Opara-Martins (2013) focused on cloud computing from the perspective of SMEs. Their research does encompass the basic questions of cloud computing, but it does not cover how cloud computing has improved the SMEs business performance. The SMEs that participated in the research only pointed out the benefits they have gained and some included having increased business performance. The researchers have noted that their research was limited because it did not delve much in business performance, but rather on the SMEs view of cloud computing. There are other aspects of cloud computing that the research did not cover like flexibility, efficiency, and functionality, which we aim to tackle within our study.

Research gap

It has been pointed out that cloud computing does improve business performance, but there is no research to indicate if this is true. Therefore, we feel there is a need to research the SMEs that have fully implemented cloud computing technologies and analyze how business performance has improved. The research will attempt to compare the business performance of SMEs using traditional technologies and those that have implemented cloud computing technologies. This would allow the research to determine how business performance has been improved upon. Failing to analyze SMEs that have not adopted cloud computing would result in similar results to other researchers, and that would not add to the available information. The main areas we would focus on include sales, finance, human resource, and customer satisfaction.

Research question

Interviewing some of the SMEs that have adopted cloud computing and seeking their input in regards to business performance would also assist in formulating further research. The SMEs would guide us regarding what to look for within out research and how to formulate some of the questions to the other SMEs. The research question would be "How have cloud computing technologies increased business performance for SMEs?"

Research methodology

The methodology for conducting this research would be mainly qualitative and will employ the use of interviews to collect data. Interviews will allow the researchers to ask open-ended questions that would ensure there are follow-up questions based on the answer provided. The researchers would have to use a mix of both closed and open questions. This ensures that the interview is not time-consuming, and the researcher receives the information as expected. However, using closed questions tends to restrict the interviewee's response, which does not allow them to think deeply regarding the question. Using open questions could elicit an endless number of responses, but they would offer the researcher a variety of ideas. These ideas can be quite helpful when it comes to answering the research question.