Advantages And Disadvantages Of Cloud Computing For Businesses: A Literature Review

Background

Discuss about the Advantages And Disadvantages Of Cloud Computing For Businesses.

A literature review is the evaluation of available literature on the concerned topic that providers researcher with the documentation of state of art. In order to make research work successful, it is essential to conduct literature review that is usually time taking, complicated and lengthy process. The topic that is selected for this particular research paper is “Advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for businesses”. Researchers are required to have proper knowledge about the theoretical concepts in order to come with successful outcome of the given or chosen topic. Review of literature for the chosen topic is done by referring to previously published journal articles and other relevant sources such as previous research work. Classification of articles is done based on different categories such as business issues, technological issues, domain and cloud computing conceptualization (Shiau and Chau 2016).

This particular study is conducted for analysing the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for businesses. Such analysis has been done by comparing different article that is extracted from different sources. Cloud computing is a model that helps in enabling on demand and convenient network access to shared pool of configurable application, computer resources that can be rapidly released and provisioned with the minimal effort of service provider interaction and management. It refers to a collection of networked and integrated software, hardware and integrated networking services to clients. The computing service is facilitated through the requirement of internet with the help of cloud computing and making payment according to use access to group of shared resources such as servers, network, application and services without physical acquisition of cloud based data management system (Singh and Chana 2016).

Literature review scope:

It becomes difficult for researcher to conduct research on any particular area if he is not retrieving information from research work done by other researchers. Researchers are able to perform critical analysis by considering the views of different researcher by referring to their previous work (Hashem et al. 2015). This will provide them different insights on one particular topic and helps in generating findings using different perspectives.

Literature review provides the analysis of research evidence related to advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for businesses. The first step in performing the research on cloud computing is enabling researcher to become well known and get clarified with the topic (Mwilu et al. 2016). There have been different perspectives within academia and practice to define cloud computing. Some of the objectives of conducting research in literature review are listed below:

• Becoming well acquainted and clarified with the concept of cloud computing
• Ascertaining the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing to businesses.
• For identifying any existing gap in literature review
• To report on key matters and themes arising in literature review

Literature Review

In this particular section of study, comparative analysis have been done by evaluating findings generated from different articles and views put forward by different authors. Over the last decade, cloud computing gave attract attention as it is growing at an unprecedented rate. In an article extracted from semanticscholar.com titled, “benefits of cloud computing: Literature review on maturity model perspective” by Sune Muller, Stefan and Jens. It has been found from the analysis of article that organizations are relying on cloud computing for wide variety of usages such as for targeting of strategic business capabilities and enhancement of internal efficiencies. One of the respondents to survey in research comes employs the cloud computing for building an external capability that enables them to easily collaborate with external partners (Pdfs.semanticscholar.org 2018). This particular paper depicts cloud computing as a drive for innovation and transforming business and it also helps in addressing the benefits of cost reduction to company. It also identifies how business is able to focus on their core competencies using cloud computing.  Benefits attributable from cloud computing have been identified across three levels of information technology-business maturity.  It was found that cloud computing helps in facilitation, support and enabling of benefits to business. Diverging application of cloud computing is reviewed, analyzed and discussed that contributed to establishment of link between benefits of cloud computing and business applications (Abd Elmonem et al. 2016).

An article is sourced from eprint.soton.ac.uk that conducts review of existing framework of cloud adoption and cloud computing. A review related to cloud computing on the background and benefits of adoption of cloud computing is presented in the paper. Such research work is considered highly relevant to the academia and users of industry as they are increasingly adopting cloud computing. This particular paper A selected review of cloud computing is presented in this article by explaining the risk and benefits of adopting the cloud computing in business environment. The risks that have been identified in the cloud computation are mainly associated with the challenges faced by businesses concerning it. In this particular research work, strength and limitations of cloud computing is made by investigating the eleven cloud computing framework. It has been ascertained from the result that none of the businesses selected are able to deal with the challenges faced from their cloud computing services. It would be required by organization to have new comprehensive framework if they intend to overcome such challenges. It has been found that such framework would help in ensuring that cloud computing challenges are minimized whilst benefits are maximised. The main focus of cloud computing adoption in next generation is specialized discipline and big data for cloud adoption (Soltani and Navimipour 2016).

Benefits of Cloud Computing for Businesses

An article named cloud enterprise system: “review of literature and its adoption” is extracted from pacis.net.org by Caroline Chan and Siti Sallah. The research work discusses about the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing system. Some of the advantages that is offered by enterprise system is that it provide organization with lower initial cost, providing flexibility on business innovation and greater emphasis on standardization. Organizations are provided with the option of leaving the non strategic activities to cloud vendor and fully focusing on strategic activities. The complexities of information technology are reduced considerably with the help of cloud vendor managing, deploying and maintaining development of information technology infrastructure. Some other benefits attributable from the cloud computing are lowering up of front cost, lower total ownership cost, ease of implementation, reduction in efforts and cost of upgrades, manageability, scalability and focusing on internal resources (Chang et al. 2014).

Some of the commonly agreed challenges faced by adopters of cloud computing are related to flexibility, security, integrity of provider, ownership of data and their ability to move to some other service providers. Cloud enterprise system in terms of organizational change may fail to provide customer with greater sense of ownership as they neither run the applications nor own the infrastructure (Kuiper et al. 2014). It is required by customer to create a balance between their realistic expectations and enthusiasm for cloud enterprise system.

This particular paper introduces and consolidates a pragmatic understanding of definition of cloud enterprise system between academic and practitioners. The literature review presented in this particular research paper contributes to understanding of advantages and challenges of adoption of cloud enterprise system adoption. The potential cloud adopters can be facilitated by having clear objectives on capabilities and features into making decision of whether cloud computing system should be adopted into their existing system of information technology. It has been found that small and medium enterprise currently accept the concept of cloud enterprise system at lower cost with scalable power of processing. The progress on this research work would contribute by leading to next phase into the investigation of different types of deployment methods of cloud enterprise system that is used in organization (Zhan et al. 2015).

In an article extracted from sciencedirect.com titled “Challenges and benefits of cloud ERP (Enterprise resource planning) system- A systematic literature review” by Geith, Nabr and Elmonem was published in the year 2016.  A systematic literature review has been followed in this particular research paper for exploring the challenges and benefits of implementation of enterprise resource planning system over a cloud environment (Ijera.com 2018). There are three stages that are conducting, planning and reporting in which the literature review is conducted. Research work also addressed research questions such as benefits and challenges addressed by all research and addressed by all investigated researchers. It has been found in the research that one of the crucial benefits offered by cloud ERP solutions is the cost transparency. In the area of cloud ERP system, researcher has used only one type of searching methods. It also incorporated automatic searching that is based on five main sources of databases of scientific sources (Aznoli and Navimipour 2017).  

Challenges of Cloud Computing for Businesses

Some of the key challenges that have been identified are performance risk, security risk, limitation of integration and customization, limitations of functionality and ownership of data. Some of the other challenges that are explored by investigated researcher are related to strategic risk, expenses of subscription, information sensitivity, loss of IT competencies, compliance risk, hidden cost, control over cloud ERP and loss of technical knowledge. The need of integration by enterprise can be satisfied by availability of huge number of cloud services. Such integration features can be developed by addition of integration features followed by additional costs (Bayramust and Nasir 2016).

This particular systematic research covers the entire research article that is published during the time period from July 2011 to July 2016. It is required by ERP clients to create a balance between challenges and benefits before they move or shift to cloud ERP system. It has been found that some benefits could help in solving many challenges while one challenge can solve some benefits. For improving the operation and implementation of cloud ERP system, it is required by researcher to consider the research points that are presented by high rated challenges (Bayramusta and Nasir 2016).

Another paper that has been evaluated is the existing research work on project of cloud computing for business. In this particular paper, the current cloud computing and its relationship to business is documented. It is revealed from this research work that cloud computing phenomenon is not suitable for all type of business. Businesses are required to provide cloud based provider with the pricing model when an upward movement in move of IT is expected. Cloud computing adoption in developing countries would help in aiding the development of start up business (Minerva.leeds.ac.uk 2018).

Journal article	Quality of paper	Currency	Relevance and validity
Pdfs.semanticscholar.org. (2018). [online] Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/269f/85e2af5624f2fe5b011fa6a92d41fa621881.pdf [Accessed 25 Apr. 2018].	Few empirical studies were founded in the article as the findings are generated solely from literature review. The article also presented potential avenue for future research.	This particular article is published in year 2015.	The article has been brought by the journal at AIS electronic library and has been accepted by an authorized administrator. Moreover, it has been cited by many several scholars.
Chang, V., Walters, R.J. and Wills, G., 2014. Review of Cloud Computing and existing Frameworks for Cloud adoption.	The article has focused on organizations such as computer science, software and electronic system.	The article was published in year 2014	Article has been cited by eighteen scholars
Pacis-net.org. (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.pacis-net.org/file/2012/PACIS2012-107.pdf [Accessed 25 Apr. 2018].	The research h work presented in the article made a comparison of traditional enterprise system with that of cloud enterprise system. However, the challenges and benefits of cloud enterprise system are elaborated further in the article.	This particular article was published in year 2012.	There is little available literature on this particular topic relating to cloud computing and this is the reason why this research are is not fully explored.
Abd Elmonem, M., Nasr, E. and Geith, M. (2016). Benefits and challenges of cloud ERP systems – A systematic literature review. Future Computing and Informatics Journal, 1(1-2), pp.1-9.	This particular research paper conducts review of systematic literature review and has presented detailed review of benefits and challenges faced by the cloud computing solutions.	The article was published in year 2016	Article is a peer and relevant review by conducting in depth data analysis of the data gathered for a time period of six years. It has been cited by many scholars for gaining insights into the information gathered by researcher.
Minerva.leeds.ac.uk. (2018). [online] Available at: https://minerva.leeds.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/orgs/SCH_Computing/MSCProj/reports/0910/omoniyi.pdf [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].	The article focuses on adoption of cloud computing by small and start up companies in developing countries.	Article was published in year 2013.	This particular research paper is cited by many scholars and is a peer review.

This particular paper has been bounded to the analysis and research of advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for business. Study particularly focuses on research of literature review and the information is gathered from peered review papers and journal articles. The above findings generated above are based solely on literature review of existing literature and the propositions are required to be tested through future research. In order to further develop and validate the proposals, researchers are required to undertake empirical research. The current study does not provide users with any practical guidelines for reducing inhibitors and strengthening enablers. Therefore, it is required to conduct further research work that should not be limited to methods, design science research into models and tools for management of portfolio of system and cloud based system as they are considered important for supporting effective cloud governance. Furthermore, one of the major challenges that have been concerning the study on cloud computing is shortage of available literature that have been encountered within the research course. There are lot of research opportunities available as could computing is an evolving topic. This particular paper provided with general overview of how cloud computing is related to business. This overview would pose a good start for conducting further studies by focusing on specific cloud computing concepts and ascertaining ways that would help in strengthening topics of business models such as cloud computing business model and cloud computing justification.

Systematic Literature Review

Conclusion:

This particular research paper discusses about the challenges and benefits of cloud computing business. Cloud computing is considered increasingly tremendous for improving the ways of conducting business. The constitution of cloud computing is difficult to discern and it has been defined by different authors with different perspectives. Businesses are able to derive benefits with the implementation of cloud computing business; however, there are some associated risks while using cloud computing technology. Organizations are reluctant to use cloud computing because of some the challenges they face while using such services. Therefore, it has been ascertained that if such issues and challenges are solved, there would be increased implementation of cloud computing services.

References:

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Chang, V., Walters, R.J. and Wills, G., 2014. Review of Cloud Computing and existing Frameworks for Cloud adoption.

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