Enabling SMEs to Use Cloud Computing Services – An Exploratory Study on Enterprises Strategy Alterations

Modern commercial enterprises, irrespective of their relative size and the scale of operations, have been enormously benefited from the ever increasing services related with the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). While the theories and models associated with developments and expansions of modern enterprises and their activities are in multi-disciplinary nature, the technology facilitations for such activities are converging into the domain of ICT infrastructure. In effect, virtual enterprises, operating globally without a physical presence, often supersede most of the hurdles that govern traditional businesses, while challenging our present understanding of business strategies. The recent development towards the provision of scalable utility computing services, known as cloud computing, has introduced a further paradigm to the norms of virtual enterprise operations by successfully eliminating the computing infrastructure barriers that many business enterprises have been experiencing to date. In this work, we have investigated the benefits of cloud computing to business enterprises, with a particular interest on small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs). While presenting the specific benefits and challenges for SMEs from cloud computing, this exploratory study proposes a new paradigm to fit cloud technology into the present enterprise practices at the strategic level. The findings from a recently published global survey on cloud computing usage in enterprises by Computer Science Corporation (CSC) support our arguments with empirical evidence and rationalise our approach of value chain modification to overcome this challenge.