Organizational challenges in cloud adoption and enablers of cloud transition program

Abstract

With the proliferation of cloud computing, organizations have been able to get access to never seen before computing power and resources. Cloud computing has revolutionized the utilization of computing resources through automatic provisioning and release, fostered greater collaboration among the stakeholders in the organization and improved the overall business performance. The implementation of cloud in an organization however brings in changes in the IT and business operations. These shifts pose challenges related to governance, security, dependency and changes in the roles and responsibilities of employees working in the business and IT functions of the organization. This study looks into some of the challenges an organization moving to the cloud faces and using an example of a large financial institution, tries to determine the organizational structures and processes that facilitate and enable a smooth transformation. The paper also illustrates the interaction between the different factors that influence cloud adoption using the system dynamics approach. A set of causal loops that demonstrates the relationship between the different factors has been developed. The effects of these loops have then been aggregated and an abstracted version of an adoption model has been developed. Based on the findings from research articles, existing organizational literature and the case of the large financial institution conclusions have been drawn from an organizational, managerial and non-managerial employee perspectives.