Capturing the business case for the introduction of cloud services in a company challenges and proposal of appropriate models

Abstract

Cloud Computing is at the top of the agenda of almost every company. The market for cloud services grew consistently over the last years and is expected to continue to expand over the next few years. To justify the investment, companies need to carefully evaluate the benefits, risks and costs of cloud services and create a compelling business case. The formation of a strong case for an investment decision about cloud services presents two primary challenges for small and medium enterprises. Firstly, companies often cannot compare the true costs of different services since they do not know the current costs of their information systems and do not include all the cost factors of cloud services within their calculations. Secondly, it is difficult to include all the intangible benefits and risks of cloud services within the business case, as they are not possible to quantify or hardly quantifiable....