2011 37th EUROMICRO Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications

Success Dimensions in Selecting Cloud Software

Services

Francis Braithwaite Mark Woodman

Business School School of Engineering and Information Sciences
BPP Business School Middlesex University,
St. Mary Axe, London EC3A 8BF, UK The Burroughs, Hendon, London NW4 4BT, UK
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—Cloud computing is promoted by providers as a service Bell Labs and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
offering to satisfy the modern information system needs of the worked together to provide a community of users access to
business stakeholder. These services are presented in a way that time-shared computing services on a mainframe (Multics) via
can be elastic, scalable, cost-effective and delivered via the a network [1]. This basic service set the scene for outsourcing
internet on a pay-for-usage pricing model. These services are now computing and the idea of outsourcing IT functions to a
within the grasp of the small and medium-sized enterprise service provider has gained in popularity. Contemporary
(SME). Businesses in general, and SMEs in particular, may not offerings are enticing organizations to transfer from a model
have the technical capability to explicitly state their service needs of capital expenditure and fixed costs to operational
or expectations or to assess risks. This paper highlights some of expenditure and cost based on service use [2], similar to
the unseen technical hurdles faced by SMEs in selecting and
common household utilities.
identifying software-as-a-service offerings. The research was
undertaken through an analysis of providers considered by Relative computing costs have reduced with improvements
businesses, the expertise the businesses sought, and an in areas such as processing power, bandwidth, Internet
ethnographic observation of a service selection. The results are
connectivity, communication speed, storage capacity and
used to propose indicative success dimensions for cloud service
selection and a need for more detailed research to support SME
scope of applications [3]. One consequence of the rapid
in service selection. advance has been that the capacity of server processing power
and applications to exceed utilization [4, 5]. Utility computing
Keywords—Cloud computing, software-as-a-service, SaaS, allowed organizations to lease parts of their data centre
cloud software, IS deployment, IT acquisition, IT investment making them a service provider. The service could be
delivered on demand via a network similar to a metered power
I. INTRODUCTION utility [6, 7]. Service designs introduced the separation of
infrastructure, such as hardware and networks, from
Advances in information technology (IT) continue to information services [8]. An example is Application Service
develop alongside increasing complexity of the information Providers (ASPs) providing off-the-shelf software from data
systems (IS) that it supports and the demand from business to centres via the Internet for a subscription or leasing fee.
leverage value from those systems. A range of new products
and services accompany each forward step in IT, promising These new developments brought equal measures of
greater affinity with business users needs. The reality of complexity and uncertainty. The ASP service model was not
matching business needs to technology still remains elusive to as successful as forecasted [9]. Problem areas lay with
many business users. Failure to recognise the problem can services not consistently meeting the changing needs of
prove both costly and in some cases damaging to a business. business, concern over privacy of data by users and rapid
One vital sector of business, small and medium-sized growth of providers. 40% of ASPs operating in 2001 were
enterprises (SMEs), increasingly depend on IS and IT; with subject to demise or takeovers by 2004 [10].
cloud computing SMEs are now able to procure previously
unattainable capabilities through software interfaces. This Cloud computing is the newest entrant promising flexible
paper reports on work to investigate this and emerging ideas computing power and options to lease computer infrastructure,
on identifying the success dimensions. Although the storage, software and even business processes on an hourly,
observational report provides a limited empirical base the weekly or monthly basis [11]. One of the drivers of cloud
work highlights the need for more detailed research into an computing has been to optimise utilization of processing
area fraught with complexity. power. Economies of scale have enabled the services produced
to be increasingly compact and rich in features, on smaller
A. The path towards the cloud devices at considerably lower costs [12]. This has opened the
There has been a gradual change in the approach towards market to SMEs providing access to the types of services
sourcing IT for business by harnessing networks. In the 1960s previously available to mainly top-tier corporations.

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DOI 10.1109/SEAA.2011.30
B. Challenges faced by SMEs SMEs are often forced to choose a service untested with their
process and procedures as the cost of experimentation for
There are a number of challenges for SMEs, compared to
flexibility is too high.
larger organizations, when selecting appropriate IT resource
yet there are few studies into the adoption and application of Reliability of services is another area of concern. Similar
IT within SMEs. This may be due a number of factors: the to the ASPs in 2001 there is a potential for cloud service
heterogonous nature of SMEs, regional differences in IT providers to suddenly stop trading. With a suggestion that
expenditure, funding opportunities and R & D capabilities. customer growth had not met expectations and delivery of
Studies that have been conducted [13, 14, 15] indicate that service had proved too expensive EMC announced an
document sharing, document storage, accounting and immediate shutdown of its storage service [19] forcing
communications are the key IT application areas where customers to move data at short notice to alternative suppliers.
adoption occurs. This emphasises the risks involved for SMEs that may not
have the resource to conduct scenario planning or develop
Deficiencies in existing IT investment become apparent as
disaster recovery plans to manage a similar event presented by
an organization grows either internally or develops business
a service provider.
ties with larger external entities. Such deficiencies are
exacerbated in an SME where growth by a few additional C. The project
employees represents a large rise in staff, and hence requires a
There is little information on the decision making process
considerable investment in IT infrastructure. Cloud computing
that leads to cloud service selection and the potential impact of
is attractive to SMEs as it offers inexpensive access to an
the service on organizations. This paper offers potential
extensive range of product and services areas. However, this
solutions to support SMEs in a closer alignment between
range creates challenges and risks to SMEs in the appropriate
business needs, and products and services offered by cloud
selection of IT resource.
providers. We have identified what lead to the availability of
Cloud service usage is still in its early stages [16] with cloud services to SMEs and some of the current issues that
many businesses struggling to make sense of the technology may be faced. To better understand the problems we need to
and crowded computer market. This underlines the problem of identify what supports the decision process for SME
alignment of the business needs with new products and procurement of cloud services. The following sections
services have not diminished and in many ways are approach this by first conducting a critique of relevant work
compounded by the sheer range of offerings. Table 1 identifies that would help shape the research design process. From the
some of the definitions of cloud computing. The definitions literature it was clear that few observations had been made
give a glimpse at the difficulty that a business, unaccustomed concerning the design process which led us to the observation
to a model of IT service delivery, would find making sense of of an SME procurement of technology. The results of both the
both the technology and the most appropriate service to meet critique of literature and observation are drawn upon to
their needs. Within most SMEs in-house technical expertise develop insights into what might constitute dimensions of
will be even more limited [15] with flatter organizational success for the implementation of cloud services within SMEs.
structure in which a director may also be the owner/manager
responsible for the IT investment. In many cases, those who II. CRITIQUE OF RELEVANT WORK
control the procurement of IT do not “have a strong ICT
background or the skills necessary to judge the potential of This critique of relevant work has been undertaken with
ICT investments” [12]. academic sources and commercial and non-scientific sources
that explore the relevant issues in cloud computing that
IT investment requires consideration of several areas to challenge SMEs that want to utilize it. SMEs do not study the
achieve successful implementation. There are a number of academic literature and often do not use external expertise,
legal issues that need to be considered [16] before entering especially if the facilities being considered appear to be
into a cloud service arrangement: jurisdiction of where data is similar to utilities. This abbreviated review establishes how
physically stored and liability through vulnerability to security cloud computing presents itself both from a user and provider
issues. Due to the architecture of cloud computing, Section 2, perspective.
the segregation of data becomes unclear so when the contract
with the service vendor expires it may be difficult for the A. The substance of cloud computing
provider to successfully dispose of all data related to the Almost half a century ago, time sharing access was offered
client. The laws governing traditional privacy and data to utilize unused computing power. Since that time there has
security issues are outpaced by technology developments [17] been significant development of supporting fibre optic
which may lead SMEs who have limited experience in these telecommunication infrastructure resulting in increased
areas struggling. bandwidth, allowing computers on the Internet to
communicate with many servers simultaneously [20]. Cloud
Pilot programmes in business to identify potential risks services leverage the infrastructure with IT service that is
and evaluate the value of the service for new technologies are accessed in real time over the Internet [21] with payment
common. The US Library of Congress [18] launched a year- structures that range from free to pay-as-you-go or periodic
long programme to test the cloud technologies ability to subscription.
provide access to digital content. A pilot of this nature requires
significant funding and staffing resource. Similar opportunities The term cloud service can be confusing [Howarth 2009]
would be impossible for an SME with limited resources. and a clear description of what it actually is and is not is still

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forming [11] as well as how it will compete with traditional referred to such as Hardware as a Service (HaaS) [35] and
service configurations [23]. Google Docs application is a Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) but in the majority of
cloud service that allows access to applications such as word cases the three most consistent are IaaS, Paas and SaaS.
processing, spreadsheets and presentation software from any
IaaS provides the highest interaction with the cloud service
location through a web browser [24]. From a non-technical
underlying architecture and can provide a highly scalable
perspective the user does not need knowledge of the physical
virtual IT department delivering networks, operating systems
location of the service or the documents created only web
and storage that is fully configurable by the client [36].
address to access them. Those within an SME may already
Transferring the responsibility for delivering the service
have exposure to this type of software and see it as a means of
externally to a service provider still requires someone to
storage and collaborative access to files remotely though they
manage the service [37] and for SMEs that could mean
may not equate it directly to a technological view of cloud
significant financial investment in retraining or additional staff
services.
resource. The flexibility to create a host of instances of
An Expo is where an SME may seek clarification on new environments computers is equally beneficial to computer
products or technology yet a report from a cloud expo [25] hackers. Using Amazon’s EC2 platform a researcher in
identified twenty one experts providing very different Germany demonstrated the ability to crack a number of 6
explanations on their take on what cloud services were. character passwords in a matter of minutes by creating an
Table 1 provides a sample of the different definitions that have array of virtual computers [38] for the cost of £2.10. Even
been applied to cloud computing from the literature from though IaaS can operate as a virtual IT centre an SME utilising
academics, business and industry commentators. There is a the service will require considerable experience of the issues
range of language, technical terms and emphasis by each of that face traditional IT delivery and heightened awareness to
these stakeholders: renting of technology; elasticity of scale; security loop holes and threats which are not explicit in the
the style of computing; range of service and reduction of majority of the relevant work and could easily be overlooked
management or service interaction required. This selection of by an inexperienced SME.
emphasis and definition suggests that cloud computing is
PaaS is the ability to deliver development tools to the
complex, varied in type and far-reaching in application. The
customer that enables them to create and progress applications
range of definitions also suggest that an SME will be faced
[39] using computer resource spread across a multitude of
with sorting through range of terminology and definitions
servers. The benefits for development come from the
describing the same product before the process of service
selection even begins. flexibility to add and subtract resources as needed rather than
trying to predict them before embarking on a project. The
Cloud service providers offer a multitude of services types responsibility for managing the software and environment falls
to support infrastructure, platform and applications. The main to the customer but not to the same extent as IaaS. PaaS is
service models widely accepted through the literature [26, 33, noted for issues regarding vendor lock-in as applications have
16, 34] are: Infrastructure as a Service: IaaS, Platform as a a specific language, such as Google App Engine’s Python,
Service: PaaS, Software as a Service: SaaS. Other types are which makes vendor lock in higher [39] and may negate the
initial benefits of the SME choosing the service.
TABLE I. CLOUD COMPUTING DEFINITIONS SaaS is the lowest level of interaction with the underlying
Source Type: Cloud Computing Definition architecture. It is a confluence of ideas that have formed over
Author a period of time into a service [40] delivering an application
Academic: “both the applications delivered as services over the Internet and the
environment across a network. The intent is to allow freedom
[26] hardware and systems software in the datacenters that provide those from the traditional monitoring and installation of software
services”
updates associated with the application management and
Academic:
[11]
“it is a means of renting computers, storage and network capacity on an
hourly basis ”.
simplify computing infrastructure [11]. Vocabulary to describe
the service is still in flux with vendors such as Salesforce [41]
(USA) “a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared
Government pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, describe it as hosted software and on-demand software.
Agency applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released
[27] with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” The service element can best be illustrated through storage
Business “the delivery of hosted services (usually software) that replace the need for offerings being presented as SaaS. Rackspace offer a package
Consultancy:
[28]
an organization to incur infrastructure costs, including the time spent
setting up local hardware and software components”
called “Cloud Drive” as SaaS [42] that provides back-up,
collaboration and storage. Storage in this sense is offered in
Industry “A pool of abstracted, highly scalable, and managed compute
Research Group infrastructure capable of hosting end customer applications and billed by the form of web-based application software (unlike the ASP
[29] consumption” that offered more traditional package software). The
Industry “A style of Computing where scalable and elastic IT capabilities are repackaging of storage as a software application may initially
Research Group provided as a service to multiple customers using Internet technologies”
[30] be confusing as IaaS also offers storage as one of the key
Service Provider: “a means of providing service delivery for consumer and business needs in
elements of its service structure. The difference between IaaS
[31] a simplified way, providing unbounded scale and differentiated quality of and SaaS is the burden of responsibility. In IaaS the customer
service”
is responsible for managing the platform in areas such
Trade
Publication:
“an emerging IT development, deployment and delivery model that
enables real-time delivery of products and services over the Internet”
updates, management and how resources are allocated. With
[32] SaaS storage the onus is of management for the storage
platform is taken by the service provider, in a sense there is an

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abstraction of responsibility. Storage offered in this way may business user and those of the technology provider are often
also be termed as Storage-as-a-Service (SaaS*) which can lead missed. There is a consistency in the inability of stakeholders,
to confusion for obvious reason. As far as the business user is from both business and technology services, to establish
concerned, much like Google Docs, the emphases on hardware explicit links between corporate and technology planning [51]
is replaced with software offering a virtual space that is not juxtaposed with the challenge to develop stronger
governed by the physicality of a local server or desktop relationships between both areas [52].
computer and may also be accessed from a web browser.
The ability of both business and IT stakeholders to respond
A number of points become clear for an SME following quickly to change in major clients or vendors is essential, [50]
the review of the architecture and technology behind cloud and SMEs in particular are more susceptible to change than
services. Firstly as the scale of the user interaction between their larger business rivals. This means a deeper understanding
client and service provider increases, from SaaS to IaaS, so of the limitations and capabilities of each set of stakeholders is
does the dependency on the service provider. Implications of required if the business is to respond to change and the service
that dependency include quality of the infrastructure provided provider can be effective in supporting such changes. An SME
and the potential for the provider to overload the service to may be subject to radical reshaping of IT through the
increase profits [43]. There is also the question of reliability of interaction with and dependency on service provider
built-in safeguards against service outage [44] or clarity on the infrastructure [36] so an equal commitment to aligning
legal issues when seeking recourse [16]. Growth of the service business process must be in place to support it.
provider itself is also a potential risk. If the cloud service
provider becomes increasing popular they may not be able to Other studies [53] suggest that the methods of
maintain the initial guarantees of service [45] or could be communication have changed dramatically over recent years
vulnerable to merger or acquisition. and that sheer volume of information that can now be
exchanged and stored making it more difficult to appropriately
Data protection is another area of potential risk. The use of contextualize relevant information. This will appear as a
virtualization on cloud servers means that data from a number problem for less technical SMEs trying to establish clear
of companies can be held on a single server with a data centre definitions of the technology most appropriate to the needs of
hosting multiple servers. The service provider may have data business for service vendor literature and industry reports.
centres networked across varied geographical locations [46] so
there maybe questions as to what location the data resides. C. SME understanding of Cloud Computing
Legislation in America and Europe vary considerably on the
issues of privacy and the location of data should be a key From the critique of relevant work we have learned there is
concern for any organization considering using cloud to store a limited research regarding the challenges of SMEs dealing
information. There is also the issue of data protection [16] with the procurement of cloud services. This may be due to
from the point of view of disaster recovery. The technology the recent introduction of the technology. The selection of
behind virtualization is still relatively new and there have been viewpoints and definitions as to what constitutes cloud
instances of security vulnerabilities enabling movement computing and hence cloud services are broad and vary
between virtual machines [47] held on a server exposing the between and within sources from academia, trade publications,
underlying data. service vendor literature and government institutes.

These examples shed light on a few of the issues that could There are a also a multitude of different service offerings
face an SME considering a cloud service. The multitude of with IaaS requiring the highest levels of management from the
possible service configurations is substantial and the customer and SaaS the least although this again may not be
challenges that are provided are equal to it. Although on the explicit to SMEs. The level of management of the service
surface these may seem purely technical challenges they also coincides with the potential for vendor lock-in making it more
require construction and support of business process. The next difficult to transfer from one service vendor to another if the
section identifies problems behind the alignment of customer is unsatisfied. The range of service configurations is
technology and business process and the possible broad, complex and continuing to develop illustrated with
consequences from failing to achieve alignment. SaaS extended to include application based storage services
that abstract the responsibility of managing many of the issues
B. Aligning the business needs and IT services associated with a storage platform.
The issue of alignment of business and IT is repeatedly The lack of alignment of business needs with IT is a
cited as a key challenge [48, 49, 50]. In an ideal world a constant challenge for organizations and failure of IS
business views IT as an important tool for the creation of implementation is both a regular occurrence and costly to
value driven by the information needs of the business and its business. Reasons for failure stem from a lack of cross
business strategy. From the technology perspective the IS disciplinary knowledge and explicisity from stakeholders.
strategy, along with the IT strategy, may not only support the These challenges are magnified within an SME through
current business strategy but also shape and develop the factors such as fewer staff with technical backgrounds and a
direction of the business strategy as emerging technologies requirement to rapidly respond to changing environments. The
create opportunities to exploit and utilise information. This critique of relevant work also exposed a need to understand a
harmonious view tends to only exist in the text book version SME decision-making process from the point of view of an
and in reality the needs message translated between the impartial observer rather than as an opinionated participant.

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 III. RESEARCH DESIGN chosen from those we had conversations with that were about
To validate the problems faced by a SME, a position was to undergo a selection of IT tools.
taken to limit the research to issues facing SMEs in the area of
SaaS as outlined above. In the introduction it was identified A. Background Information on the Organization
that sharing, document storage, accounting and For the purposes of the paper, the organization will be
communications are the key IT application areas so a position called UmbrellaCo. The director had indicated a desire to
was taken to narrow the research further to data storage consider a cloud based solution but had not decided the
services delivered as an application. In initial discussions with appropriate action to take and was willing for the process to be
representatives from organizations each had discussed storage observed and a sound recording taken for the purpose of
as a need but had identified it in terms of software rather than research. The organization was an SME which could be
part of infrastructure which may have been influenced by peer classified as a UK-based non-profit organization representing
evaluation or perceptions gained from private use or a specific industry sector. Over the previous 12 months
publications. Reich and Benbasat [54] suggest that there is a UmbrellaCo had nearly tripled their staff resource and the IT
strong social dimension to alignment in the study of the infrastructure was struggling to cope with both their internal
stakeholders’ understanding of attitudes and approach to business needs and the developing expectations of their
business and IT plans. Few of the studies seemed to have growing client base
observed decisions leading to selection of service. The UmbrellaCo was managing four programmes which were
research design needed to include observation of practice, to not-for-profit, member-led and supported by a separate board.
gather primary data on the approach that a business reasoned Each programme within the organization had its own unique
through to acquire technology products and/ or services. identity and hosted ‘learning events’, location visits, learning
Two methodologies were considered in order to shape the resources with various research programmes and a lobbying
nature of the research. Grounded Theory methodology was voice for policy actions. Each programme also had a variety of
rejected due the number of samples required in order to use research underway and a range of working groups and
the theory appropriately, which was infeasible in the time technical groups.
available. Action Research requires a much stronger The organization was keen to increase its value to
collaboration with the results of the research feeding directly members by improving the way that information was stored
into the decision making process. This was rejected as the and shared among the programmes. They indicated that they
project timescale did not allow for the level of collaboration wished to explore cloud technology to provide: an interactive
required. With this in mind, an ethnographical approach was community for members, the working groups and the public,
selected as the most valid, as it enables observation of some of more accessible/searchable library for all elements of the
the social conditions and dynamics [55] associated with business and tools for improvement of knowledge sharing
selecting a service and also allows for a passive observance of such as videos, blogs and active forums.
the decision process.
The main observation took place at a strategic decision-
Discussions on their cloud computing intentions took making meeting of key stakeholders described below.
place with several organizations using a sense-making
approach [56] to examine narratives on what storage service B. Observation of IT strategic decision-making meeting
and cloud service meant to them. One gave access to decision
The main meeting described here was held with the
thinking and agreed to allow participation in a strategic
director of UmbrellaCo and representatives of each of the four
decision-making meeting. It was agreed with the relevant
programmes. Its broad aims were to establish what the current
director prior to the meeting that the role would be primarily
status of each of the four programmes currently was and also
one of observation and interaction would be limited.
to discuss opportunities to leverage technology to support the
Permission was also received to record the event. It should be
organization in a number of its business needs.
noted that although an attempt at minimal interaction was
observed, the process of observation may have affected the This meeting provided an opportunity to update both the
response and type of engagement from some of those present. chairman and the other programme heads on the developments
of individual programmes and to inform those new to the
In summary, the scope of the research was narrowed to
organization about the background and focus of the
SaaS and the specific area of web based storage applications.
programmes themselves. Additional people external to the
What was of particular interest was the view of storage as an
organization where present including: a marketing specialist, a
abstraction from disks and more of software that allowed
systems tester used to validate the public facing website, a
various files and folders to be stored and accessed remotely.
technologist who had built the website and developed some
The primary data from the observation of practice, and
bespoke software for the organization and others
secondary data from the critique of relevant literature and
administrators for the various programmes.
vendor information could be used to form ideas on the types of
support that a business requires in order to make technology Key points were identified as things that needed to be or
decisions. could be done more efficiently were quickly summarised as:
IV. OBSERVATION OF CLOUD SERVICE SELECTION • Can technology both retain and develop industry
membership to the organization and provide greater
Following the research design, one organization was
value and engagement with new and existing

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 members? support or location of the data when stored were raised. All of
• Can technology support information concerning the which could negatively affect the organization in the future.
events exchanged both within the organization and The observations reinforce the idea that a SME needs greater
externally to new and existing membership holders or support in the explicit identification of the capability of cloud
external partners and agencies? products and services and the associated risks. It also outlined
• How can technology support knowledge sharing, both a need for a means to identify dimensions of success that will
internally and externally more efficiently? indicate the potential for success of a service that involve both
The chairman recorded in a second list various means of the business needs of the SME and the service delivered by the
trapping and sharing information that had been raised in the provider.
discussion to record how these types of technology could be V. DIMENSIONS OF SUCCESS FOR SERVICE SELECTION
identified and exploited by the organization. These included
videos, blogs, online support for training media, storing At this stage, a clarification of the main areas of concern
content and communication tools. that could face an SME can be reiterated. From the critique of
relevant work and the observation of practice, it is clear that
The discussion was then laid open for contributions on these areas should be looked at from two perspectives: those
ideas about the potential options IT to support the areas of business stakeholder and those of the service provider.
defined. What was notable was the sequence of ideas, musings
and arguments on using cloud storage as a tool, which began A. Business needs and Technology Offerings
with discussions of a wiki. It was clear that some staff This can be summarised as:
members had some pre-prepared ideas on what types of
technology would be best to distribute knowledge around the • a shortfall in the ability of business stakeholders to
organization and the concept of a wiki as a storage area and explicitly express the issues with business needs that
portal to information on documents was quickly presented. are required to successfully match with services;
What was currently in place was a poorly structured collection • a shortfall in the ability of technology services to
of folders and files; a wiki was seen as a software tool to explicitly express the capabilities and application of
arrange structure and reference the files. Some of the business their service to successfully match with business needs.
stakeholders were unclear in their understanding of wikis and
in what circumstances they could be used. Exchanges between Schmidt et al. [57] conducted extensive studies into the
the technologist and business stakeholders resulted in the primary risk factors associated with software projects. The
nature of wikis being implicitly described by the technologist study revealed that a significant risk in the project process was
in technological terms, even when greater clarification was a lack of appropriate managerial choices about technology and
sought. The conversation continued in this vein until a subsequent organizational introduction of the technology
connection to cloud storage was made from the business need chosen. The observation of practice revealed that there were
to store large video files where the question of using cloud parallel issues with the business stakeholders identifying the
services as a means to support that need. Here more common hidden caveats associated with the technologies under
terms of reference were exchanged as some stakeholders, both discussion and the potential impacts on their business; e.g.
technology and business, seemed to have experienced what impact would moving data to a storage mechanism be, if
software that allowed access to data storage in a cloud based the service failed? What disaster recovery policies need to be
environment. The impression presented was that storage was put in place? What current process will we need to change in
no longer seen as just a physical entity but as an elastic, safe order to implement a given technology? The decisions that
medium accessed via some type of software interface from form the basis of managerial choices in these types of
any location. This suggested a subtle shift in perception circumstances underline an absence of a common
between storage in physical and virtual environments and the understanding in the exchanges between business manager and
means by which it can be accessed. technologist to identify potential hurdles. There was an
understanding of some of the elements of technology that were
C. Key observation from the meeting being used by partners and peers during the observation but it
did not lead to these types of questions being raised in depth.
It was clear that the meeting was about how technology
could be used within the organization and not specifically Technologists are perceived by business managers as
about cloud storage. The concept of storage was on the speaking a foreign language [58] and the relationship between
agenda. What was interesting was how the term storage was the parties can be obfuscated through proprietary buzzwords
viewed and used. Storage was related to how data was kept and jargon. This was supported through observation, in the
internally; how documents could be held in a wiki; how way that the technologist proffered explanations. The critique
information could be used in a blog as reference material and of relevant work suggests failures from miscommunication of
opinion and how data could be stored in the cloud. user expectations are rooted in business managers finding
themselves caught in the linguistic chasm between tech-speak
There were some clear misinterpretation of the concepts of
and business speak [59]
some of the technology and what could and could not be
achieved with it. There was a clear attempt to express the All of these examples point towards the need for methods
business needs of the organization and a framework was to help identify what these hurdles are during the expression
established to try and fit the technology to the needs. However of technology and business needs. Looking forward, we also
no problems concerning any of the issues of lock in; technical need to identify methods to indicate if the technology selected

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is a success and how that success could be measured. C. Dimensions of success
There are key dimensions of success that have emerged
B. Implementation of services to meet business needs
when SMEs consider procuring cloud services. In the
Burton Swanson and Ramillier [60] identified the need for introduction, it was argued that cloud computing is a relatively
an “organizing vision” when dealing with innovation that new development, but the notion of service providers offering
explains its existence within the broader social, technological computing resource via networks has been present for over 50
and economic context. With any new technological years. New technologies and economies of scale have enabled
innovation, such as cloud computing, comes the challenge of cloud services to now be available to SMEs, offering them the
translating that idea into something that people who wish to opportunity to take advantage of infrastructure and
exploit the innovation can understand. applications previously only available to larger corporations.
Venkatesh, et al. [61] studied a number of models and This can be seen as both an opportunity and a hidden threat.
theories to better understand the acceptance and usage of SMEs tend to be more agile, with the potential to respond
information technology. They formulated a unified theory of quickly to advances in technology and utilise them to their
acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and theorised that advantage. However, the very nature of SMEs means that
four overriding constructs could be used to determine overall there will be comparatively fewer personnel within the
IT usage and acceptance: Performance expectancy, effort organization, that have technical expertise or experience in
expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions. By dealing with the types of services that are now available
relating the viewpoints expressed in the observation of through cloud. Critique of the relevant work and observation
practice to UTAT, it can be seen that there are circumstances of practice, though limited, revealed that the business
where additional information is required to make informed observed reflected several issues identified in the literature.
choices and develop user acceptance. In such cases the To highlight these problems more clearly, an adaptation of
information supplied would highlight issues associated with Delone and McLean’s model [63] is proposed to identify the
the implementation and successful adoption of the technology. key dimensions of success for a cloud service to be a
DeLone and McLean [62] recognised that there had been successful partnership between service provider and
issues with the success rates of IS projects and attempted to organization (see Fig. 1). In this modified version, the six
identify the key measurable components that could be dimensions are applied to cloud data storage. In the revised
attributed to the success of an IS project and revised these in DeLone and McLean model [63] the six dimensions are:
2003 [63] to include: System quality, Information quality, information quality, system quality, service quality, intention
Service quality, Use, User satisfaction, Net benefits to use or use, user satisfaction and net benefits. These were
argued as being necessary for measuring IS success essentially
The main changes were the inclusion of; services quality within an organization. With cloud computing part of the IS is
as a major influence in the success of the system and the net by definition outside the organization and so in order to
benefits, to identify both positive and negative impacts consider the success of the system as a whole we need to
expressed concerning the chosen technology, following extend to include the service provider.
purchase and use. During the observation, the explanation
used by the technologist and the business stakeholder Hence, we propose (in Fig. 1) that the domain of the cloud
overlooking crucial questions, indicates the threat of provider covers two main areas: system quality and service
misalignment between business needs and IT. Expressions of quality. System quality includes the usability of the
the capability of, and need for, technology may be technology, availability, reliability, response time, upload
communicated but the sender and receiver miss each other speed and download speed. Service quality includes client
with their meanings [64]. In the context of this paper, these support options which may take the form of telephone, email,
occurrences could be further clarified as: chat functions and frequently asked questions (FAQs).

• An assumption by technology service providers that Within the domain of the business, the areas include: Use
the implicit limitations, and extensibility, of as willingness of users to engage with the applications, most
technology products and services have been explicitly likely run through browsers or desktop client based software
expressed to business stakeholders. run on local machines. In DeLone & McLean [63], “use” was
applied as “usage” to an e-commerce environment where
• An assumption by business stakeholders that the primary system users where external customers rather than
implicit limitations, and extensibility, of technology internal systems users. In the context of cloud storage the
products and services have been made explicit from the primary systems user is predominantly internal. An example
information expressed by technology service providers. might be in the case of the Drop box storage-as-a-service
The procurement of technology in the cloud could be software that allows your view of the data to appear as a folder
approached in the same manner as a more traditional IS on a local machine or via a web interface and how that could
project and as such, is open to the same risk of failure. This is then be used by the business. User satisfaction: this relates
especially pertinent for SMEs where the experience of back to the information the UTAUT signified earlier:
specifying and procuring IT may be limited. The potential for performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence
flexibility in cloud offerings, and accompanying technical and facilitating conditions Finally net benefits which equates
vocabulary, could potentially exasperate the opportunities for to economies of scale (data centre) operational rather than
poorly judged decisions in cloud service configurations. capital expenditure, cost savings or additional expenditure.
The relationship among these dimensions is important. From

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the cloud providers perspective the service quality and system
quality directly impact user satisfaction and use/ intention to
use the storage software for the business. These dimensions
need constant review and dialogue with the business to inform
the provider on how they may or may not be matching
business needs. Information quality, in the case of storage,
may be determined by the policies governing what
information should actually be stored, how it is organised, and
what security restrictions need to be placed on the data.
Without clear policies to govern these areas the quality of
information may deteriorate rapidly and the benefit of vastly
improved data storage capacity reduced by information
redundancy. Intention to use/use, and user satisfaction may be
reflected through the extent that the storage service is used for
different file types, download times, number of files stored or
accessed. These dimensions impact the net benefits of the
service to the business such as ability for workers to complete
more tasks, enable working remotely or business expansion.
If dimensions are positive, such as a clear policy control Figure 1. Proposal for Adapted Success Model in Cloud Services
over information quality, then the alignment of business and
IT increases. Negative influences, such as users declining use Businesses, particularly SMEs, appear to need more
to store files, represent a departure from alignment and a guidance on the implications of the services on offer and for a
decline in the success of the service. The area between the working partnership to be developed with the service provider.
business and the provider identifies a conceptual area of The paper has proposed an extension of the DeLone &
tolerance linking the alignment of business and cloud service. McLean [63] model that emphasises the dimensions of success
A similar concept [65] was applied to customer service required between both service provider and SME. A
expectations of banking customers. As the area increases, successful outcome would be a dynamic co-creation of value
there is a greater level of service from the vendor and the between both business and provider, each benefiting from a
customer is more likely to stay engaged: alignment of business closer alignment of business and IT.
and IT has been successful. As dimensions become negative, In the longer term the relationship between the two parties
the area recedes and there is a resultant reduction in the will enable greater longevity to the more business-savvy
success of the system and departure from business alignment. service providers preventing the same fate as some of their
Reduction of the area of tolerance can lead to a point of ASP ancestors that were heavily reduced in number through
shearing where the customer may leave the service altogether. merger or acquisition. The SMEs will benefit by more
effective utilization of the range of services on offer and
VI. CONCLUSION through their own business agility could be instrumental in
Within the paper we have recognised that historically driving cloud into new areas of technological development. If
computer service provision has been targeted at organizations the ultimate goal is still successfully aligning business needs
or corporate users with knowledge and skills of placing IT at and IT services, then these are the dimensions that may
the heart of a business. Much of the literature (academic and determine the success of future cloud software service models.
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