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Top1. Introduction
Many new technologies (e.g., Augmented Reality, Internet of Things, 3D Printers, Big Data, Cloud Computing, System Integration, etc.) have been widely used with the release of Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 (Fourth Industrial Revolution) is defined as a production system based on cyber-physical systems (Kagermann et al., 2013). The integration of machines and objects, together with the Internet of Things technologies, has resulted in a huge amount of data. Collecting and analyzing this data will provide a competitive advantage for companies (Deloitte, 2015).
Cloud Computing is a new technology that could potentially revolutionize IT implementation and delivery (Alismaili et al., 2020). It is a model that can provide on-demand network access to configurable computing resources from a shared pool with minimal management effort or service provider interaction (Mell & Grance, 2009). Service providers are divided into three classes according to the service offered, such as PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS (Rimal et al., 2011).
SaaS is a software delivery model where software is hosted locally and delivered over the Internet, and the payment method follows a subscription model (MCSI, MIETE, 2009). Performance is an important feature depending on the quality of SaaS (Wang & Ying, 2018). Some SaaS applications have been developed for business technologies. This includes sales management, CRM, financial management, Human Resources Management. The second core service model PaaS provides developers with a platform that covers the developing, testing, distributing, and hosting lifecycle of advanced web applications as a service. Facebook F8, Salesforge App Exchange, Google AppEngine, Bunzee connect and Amazon C2 provides several ready-made services. This may indicate that PaaS can support multiple applications on a single platform (Xu, 2012). Finally, the most basic service of cloud computing is IaaS. The IaaS can be defined as the idea of purchasing IT hardware as a pay-as-you-go (post-pay).
Companies can create and maintain a tremendous competitive advantage through innovation. It is therefore not surprising that firms are highly concerned with the mechanisms that enable effective innovation (Chen et al.,2020). Cloud computing technologies can have businesses or individual users for different purposes (Chen et al., 2011). A cloud computing system holds critical data on the internet and provides users access wherever there is internet access (Durao et al., 2014). Many companies or users can use cloud systems for data storage and backup to save capital and infrastructure costs. Dropbox, Google Drive and Amazon S3 are of cloud computing solutions (Borodako et al., 2021). ERP and CRM are cloud computing business management applications. Cloud computing enables data scientists to analyze data, find correlations, predict future crises, and assist data-driven decision-making in an enterprise.
In today's developing world, cloud computing continues to be more widely adopted by companies. The adoption of cloud-based services can help organizations ensure a seamless and timely flow of information (Lal & Bharadwaj, 2020). Despite some adverse effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the cloud computing market maintained its growth potential. This crisis has affected organizations globally. The vast majority of organizations had to adopt new ways of working styles with the pandemic. Deloitte has interviewed with CIOs from different sectors and it was seen that cloud computing adoption is one of the key trends in organizations’ long-term priorities for CIOs. According to another research conducted by IBM and MC Kinsey, cloud investments will exceed traditional IT investments in 2020. In the study, it was seen that 94% of the participating companies used multiple cloud environments. This situation has raised some priority concerns (movement and connectivity among clouds, consistency of management) for organizations (Gagic et al., 2019).