Article Preview
TopIntroduction
The downturn in today’s economy is calling for affordable IT resources, especially for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), and cloud computing (CC) is one of the promising technologies that can enhance the productivity and performance of businesses (Aljabre, 2012). This is the reason for SMEs to use cloud computing technologies; in that, it can offer low assets investment, elasticity, scalable systems, and vigorous business models (ENISA, 2009). Additionally, CC can assist in creating new opportunities for organisations (Babcock, 2010). Cloud computing offers various benefits, such as reducing complexity, cutting cost, and enhancing business performance, to organisations (Kochut et al., 2011). Despite these advantages, evidence suggests that the acceptance of this technology among Australian SMEs is low and lags behind other OECD countries (Minifie, 2014; MYOB, 2012; OECD, 2013). SMEs are characterized by unique aspects that include limited technical knowledge (Barry & Milner, 2002), scarce resources (Raymond, 2001), and inefficient organizational planning (Raymond, 2001). SMEs choose low-cost technological resources to cater for their needs (Saini, Khanna, & Kumar, 2012). For SMEs in particular, the cloud computing can play a vital role in reducing the technological gap with large enterprises and increase competition with these enterprises through reducing the capital constraints and lack of technical knowledge (Michael et al., 2013).
Australian SMEs are the skeleton of the economy because they constitute 99.75% of the business economy and recruit 70% of the country’s workers (ABS, 2013). This sector is crucial for the development of the country’s economy. Innovation in this area is essential for leveraging productivity, increasing competitiveness, and for creating new business opportunities. Technologies play a vital role in providing opportunities for the advancement of SMEs (Minifie, 2014). SMEs investment capability in Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) is lower than large organizations, and CC could provide SMEs with affordable access to technologies which, until now, have been monopolized by the large organizations (Michael et al., 2013). Access to CC can potentially leverage SMEs IT resources (Hadidi, 2010), and this can increase their competitiveness and give them access to new markets. Cloud computing can assist in delivering innovation in products, services, and processes that can increase Australian competitiveness. The rate of innovation in a small firm is less than in larger firms (ABS, 2013). Cloud computing still has some challenges; such as security, privacy, trust, availability, and lock-in (Daniel, Chen, Liu, Wang, & Wei, 2014). Data privacy and security have the potential to be compromised because of the location of data centers in different legislative sites (Sahandi, Alkhalil, & Opara-Martins, 2012). According to recent surveys, businesses worldwide still believe that security is one of the main barriers facing CC (SolarWinds, 2016).