Assessing the challenges that are confronted rural-based SMEs on the implementation of cloud services

Abstract

The increase of contemporary technologies such as cloud-based services has attracted various institutions, especially in developing countries. Many businesses have started to show interest in migrating to the cloud to expand their businesses, particularly in urban areas. However, it has become challenging for rural-based Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to integrate themselves with ICT innovations such as cloud services as they are facing various challenges like poor development of ICT infrastructure. It is these difficulties that are facing SMEs located in rural areas that are at the core of this study, whose aim is to assess the challenges that rural-based SMEs are facing on the implementation of cloud services. A literature review from the previous studies was used to identify these challenges, which were later transformed into variables that ended up being tested in this paper. These variables include independent variables such as Security, Compatibility, Perceived usefulness, Perceived ease of use, and dependent variable, which are cloud services. A Likert-scale questionnaire-based survey of small business employees was conducted from a small town called Elliotdale, Eastern Cape, South Africa, to assess whether the challenges mentioned above, according to them, have an impact on the implementation of cloud services by SMEs. The data were analyzed to test the reliability and validity of the data-gathering instrument(questionnaires) and inferential statistics such as correlations between independent and dependent constructs, and Regression (predictor). The results indicate that the participants agreed that the challenges mentioned above, such as Security, Compatibility, Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, have a significant impact on the implementation of cloud services by rural-based SMEs.