Cloud computing services adoption in Australian SMEs: a firm-level investigation

Cloud computing services can boost the competitiveness of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and leverage countries' economies. In the Australian context, there is an emerging trend that SMEs begin to embrace cloud technology in their traditional business activities. However, prior studies did not pay much attention to investigating the factors that influence the cloud computing adoption among Australian SMEs. To fill the research gap, this paper investigates the influential factors that affect the decision on adopting cloud computing services for Australian SMEs. Protocol data collected from fifteen firm-level semi-structured interviews with practitioners are presented and discussed. The protocol analysis indicates that various factors are important to the adoption of cloud computing services for Australian SMEs, such as security concerns, cost savings, and privacy due to geo-restrictions. Furthermore, this study confirms the insignificance of complexity and competitive pressure factors in the adoption of cloud computing among Australian SMEs. These findings have imperative implications to scholars and practitioners alike in the cloud computing research and applications areas.