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

La construction des Business Models des fournisseurs de services d'infrastructure Cloud Computing (IaaS)

The emergence of cloud computing is changing the landscape of the infrastructure supporting IT systems. The originality of cloud computing lies primarily in the offer of a new consumption mode available to consumers: IT resources as a service provided on demand. IT providers that have based their income from products sales (hardware and software licenses) faced a change in their revenue models, and thus have to consider new business models. This research reveals that IaaS provider is defined as cloud operators. They are service aggregator and offer functional infrastructure available on demand available over the network. IaaS providers are building a supplier-partners and product-partners ecosystems to increase the overall value. When consumers sign contract, they declaim all technical issues by transferring them to providers. Service Level Agreement (SLA) becomes the object of transaction between providers and consumers. For the pricing process, rate of use is the basis of cost assessment. We suggest three leverage to IaaS providers in order to increase their share of value added: (1) lower costs through technological innovation, (2) ability to attract and retain customers to have high rate of use, and (3) development of services ecosystem.L’émergence du Cloud Computing change le paysage des infrastructures qui soutiennent les systèmes informatiques. L’originalité du Cloud Computing réside avant tout dans l’offre d’un nouveau mode de consommation proposé aux clients: les ressources informatiques en tant que service à la demande. Les fournisseurs de "hardware" et de "software" qui ont historiquement fondé leurs revenus sur la vente de produits matériels et de licences logiciels ont fait face à un changement de leurs modèles de revenus, et donc à considérer de nouveau Business Models. Ce travail révèle que les fournisseurs de services d’infrastructure Cloud Computing se définissent comme étant des opérateurs Cloud. Ils ont un rôle d’agrégateur de service et proposent des services d’infrastructures fonctionnelles, disponible à la demande et accessible à distance. Ces fournisseurs construisent un écosystème de partenaires-fournisseurs et un écosystème de partenaires-produits pour accroitre la valeur ajoutée globale. La garantie de niveau de service (SLA) devient l’objet de la transaction entre le fournisseur et le client. Ce dernier se décharge de toutes les problématiques techniques, et les transfère au fournisseur lors de la signature du contrat. Lors de la fixation des prix, une hypothèse de taux d’usage est prise en compte et sera à la base des calculs des coûts. Nous proposons alors trois leviers d’actions aux fournisseurs d’infrastructure Cloud Computing pour accroître leur part de valeur ajoutée : (1) la baisse des coûts par l’innovation technologique, (2) la capacité d’attirer et de garder les clients pour avoir un taux d’usage élevé, et (3) le développement d’un écosystème de services