Strategies For Resolving Employee Access And Identity Management Issues In Cloud Computing: A Case Study Of ABC Web Development Company

Organizational background

Describe about the Affective Commitment to Change and Innovation Implementation Behavior?

There was a time when Information Technology was considered as a secondary function in the organization. With spread of technology, Information System has emerged as important business function. There was a time when Information Systems were used primarily by large organizations only. With time, the cost of Information Technology has reduced and today IT is being used by large as well as small organizations. Still today, small size companies do not find it easy to afford the high costs of Information Technology. One of the ways for small organizations to overcome the cost of Information Technology to use IT as a service through cloud computing. It can be said that cloud computing has emerged as a powerful way of operations in last decade or so. With the help of cloud computing even small organizations can use IT without installing hardware and software at their premises. Cloud computing involves deploying groups of remote servers and software networks that allow centralized data storage and online access to computer services or resources (Friedman, 2013). Clouds can be classified as public, private or hybrid. The companies like Google and Yahoo offer cloud solutions to end customers as well as individuals. In today’s world, Google Mail is one of the best example of cloud computing. In the case of cloud computing the data of company would be stored in a shared server. With cloud computing the employees if the firm would get the access through a server that could be located anywhere. One of the disadvantages of cloud computing is that employees can face certain access management issues.

The objective of this paper is to analyze and discuss the strategies for the resolution of employee access and identity management issues in a small IT organization dealing with Cloud computing. A brief organizational background and specific issues can be discussed as:

The organization is a small website development company by the name of ‘ABC Web Development Company’. The company operates in computer industry and it is into operations for last 20 years. The company is based out in Sydney and it has its presence in various parts of Australia. The company has small employee strength of 200 employees spread across its offices in Australia. The organizations used cloud computing as a service. The information of the organization is shared on a private and restricted cloud and only users with authorization can access the cloud. The objective of this research work would be to identify the access management issues for employees and develop the strategies to resolve these issues. The purpose, aims and specific research questions of this project can be discussed as:

This research would be done only for ABC Company. This research would be used to help ABC to overcome the access management issues. In the current scenario all the employees have to perform double authentication before accessing the computer systems of the company. Not all the employees are comfortable with the current cumbersome process. The specific research questions for this research project can be discussed as:

Purpose and aims

Identify all the access and identify management issues for ABC Company on their private cloud.

Develop strategies and policies to overcome the identify management issues.

Develop short term and long-term resolution strategies.

There has been a lot of work done in the field of cloud computing. The biggest benefit of cloud computing is that it helps organizations to save the cost. The process of controlling identity, access and delivery of services was relatively simple when employees only had one desktop computer to log in to every morning. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case for most organizations now. ABC Company has a network of computer systems and the employees of the company would login into the network of the company and not just a computer system. Different computer systems of the company are on a single network and this network can be accessed through a cloud system.

This research work would be most significant for small size and mid size companies. This research work should help the small companies, which want to make decisions about the use of cloud computing in their environment. This research work should be able to answer the doubts and issues of small companies who are anxious about the use of cloud computing.

This project would include a mixed method of research. The mixed method of research would use a combination of both primary and secondary research. Any project is executed best when both primary and secondary research are used (McCalman, 2008). The primary and secondary research that would be used for this project can be discussed as:

The primary research for this project would use the information that would be collected directly from the management and employees of ABC Company. As a part of primary research, two questionnaires would be developed. One of the questionnaires would be developed specifically for management and other questionnaire would be developed for the employees of ABC. The question in the survey would be both open ended and close ended in nature. The ratio between close ended and open-ended questions would be 80% to 20%. It is always good to use more of close-ended questions so that respondents find it easy to answer (Armenakis, 2007). The management of the company would be asked certain open-ended questions but it is better to avoid open-ended questions to employees of ABC. The questionnaires would be mailed to management and employees of the company through emails. The respondents would be asked to fill the questions and mail back.

As a part of this research, a sample size of 100 participants would be considered. It would include 90 employees of the company and 10 people from management. A sample of the questions for management and employees of the company can be discussed as:

The secondary research for this research work would consists of study on Internet and other sources. The websites on Internet and online library would act as great source of information for this research project. It would be important to mention that secondary research would include studying only the reliable websites. Not all the websites on the Internet has genuine content. It is important to refer only the peer-reviewed journals (Seatter, 2014). The secondary research for this project would continue along with primary research.

Project approach and design

The secondary research for this research work would also include the literature review of vast literature. A brief literature review for this research can be discussed as:

(Byrne & Lynn, 2007) have highlighted the benefits of cloud computing for small and mid-size organizations. It is important that organizations must have both short term and long-term plans for the use of Information Technology. An important part of IT strategy of small organization is the emphasis on cloud computing. Along with the benefits of cloud computing, organizations must also focus on the risks of cloud computing. A risk assessment plan would help organizations to avoid the risks in short term and mitigate the risks in long term.

(Stegmaier & Sontagg, 2009) discussed the various resolution strategies for access management system for organizations that uses cloud computing. It can be said that employee involvement should be high in order to overcome the risks of access management issues. It is important that employees should be provided adequate training in order to help them to overcome the access and identification management issues. The support from senior stakeholders is also required to ensure that the issues of employees can be overcome. It is important that management should also develop a strategic plan to overcome the issues. The issues of access management and identification management can also bring in certain chain management issues. It is important that management should have polices and strategies to overcome the change management issues that may come up with access management and identification issues (Zhang & Xu, 2011).

Any research work should starts with the ‘issues identification’ phase. This phase should thought of a phase where the underlying issues to conduct the issues would be decided. The detailed project plan for this research work can be discussed as:

Phase	Timelines	Comments
Issue identification	2 weeks	It would be the phase where issues would be identified and foundation of research work would be done
Research objective and background	2 weeks	It would be the phase where specific research objectives would be laid down and research questions would be formulated
Primary research	6 weeks	It would be the phase where the questionnaire would be emailed to participants
Secondary research	6 weeks	It would be the phase research would be done on Internet. This phase would start along with primary research and would end with primary research
Data Collection	5 weeks	It would be the phase in which data would be collected from various respondents
Data Analysis	4 weeks	It would be the phase where data would be analyzed. The tools like SPSS and Microsoft Excel would be used to analyze the data
Research Output	3 weeks	It would be the phase where research would be concluded and research output would be formulated
Reporting	2 weeks	It would be the phase where the results of the research would be made public.

There would be various risks that would surround this research project. The risks for this project would include social risks as well as technological risks. Another important risk is the delay in the execution of the project or time slippage issues. A risk mitigation plan for different risk can be discussed as:

Risk	Probability	Impact	Mitigation strategy
Timeline slippage (This risk would occur if the project plan is not followed)	High	Medium	It is important there should be a check point at each of the milestone and a buffer should be added to the timelines
Primary research risks (There is always a risk if the participants would provide true and unbiased information or not)	Medium	High	It is important that data should be filtered to remove the bias and it is also important that simple questions should be asked to participants so that they can provide true information
Secondary research risks (There is always a risk if some false information is collected from a website)	Low	Medium	It is important that only reliable websites should be referred and only peer reviewed journals should be used as part of this research
Legal risks (It is important that all the legal guidelines should be followed)	Low	Medium	It is important that researcher should take the services of a legal council that would guide researcher
Ethical risks (It is important that none of the unethical practices should be followed)	Medium	Medium	It is important that researcher should remain motivated through out the research duration

One of an important part for any research project is the ethical consideration. In this research project there would be ethical considerations form the side of researcher as well as from the side of participants. It is expected that the participants would show high ethical standards while answering the questions. It is important that the participants would not provide any false information. At the end of research, it is expected that he would not use the data and information for any other purposes. The information that would be collected with primary research would be kept truly confidential and would not be shared with any other individuals or agency (Frattini, 2011). It is important the researcher should sign the contract wherein he would be legally abided to not to share the data collection part. In addition, the personal information of the employees and managers who would participate in this research work would also be kept confidential.

Primary research

The success or failure of any research work would not only depend on the way project is executed but it would also depend on the way the results of the project are communicated to the outside world. It is expected that a research project would be developed that would be shared with the audience (Schroth, 2008). It is important the researcher should consent with all the members of the research before publishing the research report.

For this research work, a well-structured report would be developed as a document file. The document would also have a section of executive summary that would detail down the research results. In addition to a document, a small presentation using Microsoft PPT would also be made that would highlight the research work and research results in 10 slides. This presentation would be helpful for those who just want to get a high-level idea of the research.

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