Using cloud computing services to enhance competitive advantage of commercial organizations

Using advanced technology in business has created hyper-competition among organizations to satisfy customers' needs. Using advanced technology aims to provide customers with quality products/services at suitable prices in the right place better than competitors. Therefore, the current study's purpose is to explore the influence of cloud computing services on Jordanian commercial organizations’ competitive advantages, organizations which use cloud computing services. The study uses quantitative, cause-effect, and cross-sectional methods and uses a convenience sampling approach to collect the data by questionnaire from 111 managers and/or owners of commercial organizations. The collected questionnaires are examined and inserted into SPSS. The instrument validity, normal distribution, and reliability are verified, then descriptive analysis is performed, the relationship between independent and dependent variables is tested, and finally multiple regressions are used to test the hypotheses. The findings indicate that commercial organizations are concerned about cloud computing services as well as competitive advantage sub-variables. The results also show that there was a significantly strong correlation between cloud computing services and competitive advantage. Moreover, cloud computing services influence the dimensions of competitive advantages (quality, cost, reliability, innovation, and responsiveness) of commercial organizations, where cloud computing services have the most significant influence on quality followed by cost and responsiveness, respectively. However, cloud computing services do not significantly influence innovation and reliability. Finally, the study recommends doing comparable research on other sectors, and industries as well as in other countries to test the results' generalizability

Exploring Strategies that IT Leaders Use to Adopt Cloud Computing

Information Technology (IT) leaders must leverage cloud computing to maintain competitive advantage. Evidence suggests that IT leaders who have leveraged cloud computing in small and medium sized organizations have saved an average of $1 million in IT services for their organizations. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies that IT leaders use to adopt cloud computing for their organizations. The target population consisted of 15 IT leaders who had experience with designing and deploying cloud computing solutions at their organization in Long Island, New York within the past 2 years. The conceptual framework of this research project was the disruptive innovation theory. Semistructured interviews were conducted and company documents were gathered. Data were inductively analyzed for emergent themes, then subjected to member checking to ensure the trustworthiness of findings. Four main themes emerged from the data: the essential elements for strategies to adopt cloud computing; most effective strategies; leadership essentials; and barriers, critical factors, and ineffective strategies affecting adoption of cloud computing. These findings may contribute to social change by providing insights to IT leaders in small and medium sized organizations to save money while gaining competitive advantage and ensure sustainable business growth that could enhance community standards of living

New Organizational Challenges in a Digital World: Securing Cloud Computing Usage and Reacting to Asset-Sharing Platform Disruptions

Information technology (IT) and IT-enabled business models are transforming the business ecosystem and posing new challenges for existing companies. This two-essay dissertation examines two such challenges: cloud security and the disruption of asset-sharing business models.The first essay examines how an organizations usage of cloud storage affects its likelihood of accidental breaches. The quasi-experiment in the U.S. healthcare sector reveals that organizations with higher levels of digitalization (i.e., Electronic Health Records levels) or those with more IT applications running on their internal data center are less likely to experience accidental breaches after using public cloud storage. We argue that digitalization and operational control over IT applications increase organizations awareness and capabilities of establishing a company-wide security culture, thereby reducing negligence related to physical devices and unintended disclosure after adopting cloud storage. The usage of cloud storage is more likely to cause accidental breaches for organizations contracting to more reputable or domain expert vendors. We explain this result as the consequence of less attention being focused on securing personally accessible data and physical devices given high reliance on reputed and knowledgeable cloud providers. This research is among the first to empirically examine the actual security impacts of organizations cloud storage usage and offers practical insights for cloud security management.The second essay examines how Asset-Sharing Business Model Prevalence (ASBMP) affects the performance implications of industry incumbent firms competitive actions when faced with entrants with asset-sharing business models, like Airbnb. ASBMP represents the amount of third-party products and services that originally were unavailable inside the traditional business model but now are orchestrated by asset-sharing companies in an industry. We use texting mining and econometrics approaches to analyze a longitudinal dataset in the accommodation industry. Our results demonstrate that incumbents competitive action repertoires (i.e., action volume, complexity, and heterogeneity) increase their performance when the ASBMP is high but decrease incumbents performance when the ASBMP is low. Practically, incumbents who are facing greater threat from asset-sharing firms can implement more aggressive competitive action repertoires and strategically focus on new product and M&A strategies. This research contributes to the literature of both competitive dynamics and asset-sharing business models

Security Strategies for Hosting Sensitive Information in the Commercial Cloud

IT experts often struggle to find strategies to secure data on the cloud. Although current security standards might provide cloud compliance, they fail to offer guarantees of security assurance. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the strategies used by IT security managers to host sensitive information in the commercial cloud. The study\u27s population consisted of information security managers from a government agency in the eastern region of the United States. The routine active theory, developed by Cohen and Felson, was used as the conceptual framework for the study. The data collection process included IT security manager interviews (n = 7), organizational documents and procedures (n = 14), and direct observation of a training meeting (n = 35). Data collection from organizational data and observational data were summarized. Coding from the interviews and member checking were triangulated with organizational documents and observational data/field notes to produce major and minor themes. Through methodological triangulation, 5 major themes emerged from the data analysis: avoiding social engineering vulnerabilities, avoiding weak encryption, maintaining customer trust, training to create a cloud security culture, and developing sufficient policies. The findings of this study may benefit information security managers by enhancing their information security practices to better protect their organization\u27s information that is stored in the commercial cloud. Improved information security practices may contribute to social change by providing by proving customers a lesser amount of risk of having their identity or data stolen from internal and external thieve

Strategies for Successful Healthcare Information Technology Projects

Without successful information technology (IT) implementations, IT managers and project managers (PMs) would fail to support their customers\u27 and patients\u27 technological needs. IT managers in healthcare organizations who improve IT project success rates will enhance the organization’s financial health. Grounded in the transformational leadership model, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies some IT managers in healthcare organizations use to deliver IT projects meeting deliverable requirements. The participants were 5 IT managers and PMs in healthcare organizations in a metropolitan area of California who effectively used strategies to successfully deliver IT projects for health organizations. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, archived company documentation, and project management documents from PMI archives. Yin’s 5-step analysis was used to analyze the data from which 5 themes emerged: defined scope, defined project plan, stakeholder management, communication, and the selected software development lifecycle. A key recommendation includes adopting agile or hybrid methodology to incorporate iterative development practices into information technology project implementations. The implications for positive social change include a potential reduction in healthcare costs to patients, improvement in the work environment by reducing employee stress related to failed projects, and a possible increase in funding of healthcare jobs and research to improve patient care

Strategies for Reducing the Risk of Data Breach Within the Internet Cloud

Businesses are increasingly incorporating cloud computing into their current business models. With this increase, security breach exposure has also increased, causing business leaders to be concerned with financial hardship, operational disruption, customer turnover, and customer confidence loss due to personal data exposure. Grounded in the integrated system theory of information security management, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore successful strategies some information security leaders in the aerospace and defense contractor industry use to protect cloud-based data from security breaches. The participants were 7 information security leaders from 7 different aerospace and defense contractor companies located in the United States mid-Atlantic region. Data from semistructured interviews were analyzed and compared with 8 publicly available data sources for data triangulation. Emergent themes narrowing this knowledge gap was extracted through an analysis technique such as coding and then triangulated. The recurring themes were (a) strong authentication methods, (b) encryption, and (c) personnel training and awareness. A key recommendation includes information security leaders implementing preventative security measures while improving an organization\u27s ability to protect data lost within the Internet cloud. The implications for positive social change include the potential to increase consumers confidence while protecting confidential consumer data and organizational resources, protecting customers from the costs, lost time, and recovery efforts associated with identity theft

Understanding Financial Value of Cloud-Based Business Applications: A Phenomenological Study

An understanding of opportunities and challenges in cloud computing is needed to better manage technology costs and create financial value. The purposes of this transcendental phenomenological study were to understand the lived experiences of minority business owners who operated business applications in the cloud and to explore how these experiences created financial value for businesses despite security challenges. Historically, minority business owners have experienced high rates of business failures and could benefit from information to help them manage business costs in order to position their businesses to grow and succeed. Modigliani-Miller\u27s theorem on capital structure and Brealey and Young\u27s concept of financial leverage were the conceptual frameworks that grounded this study. Data consisted of observational field notes and 15 individual semistructured interviews with open-ended questions. I used the in vivo and pattern coding approaches to analyze the data for emerging themes that addressed the research questions. The findings were that drivers of positive cloud-based experiences, such as easy access, ease of use, flexibility, and timesavings, created financial value for small business owners. In addition, the findings confirmed that opportunities in the cloud such as cost savings, efficiency, and ease of collaboration outweighed security challenges. Finally, the results indicated that cost-effective approaches such as the subscription model for acquiring technology created financial value for businesses. The findings of this study can be used by business owners, especially minority small business owners, to decide whether to move operations to the cloud to create financial value for their businesses