THE INFLUENCE OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN BUSINESS MODELING OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES (SMES)

Abstract

The area of Information Technology (IT) has progressed permanently providing tools that encourage the practice of innovative solutions, to more complex and sophisticated tasks, in a less expensive manner and thus making enterprises more competitive. This trend is consolidating the Internet as well as providing a service model based on the cloud computing (CC) technology, where platforms and software which constitutes the IT infrastructure of a specific data center in any organization are being replaced by huge computer networks which are accessed through the Internet (cloud). Such global service which is available on demand is now being target by many enterprises, especially small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), due to the fact that the access to the latest IT technology, which was previously prohibited, can encourage the adoption of innovative processes when doing business. This case study seeks to identify possible contributions to management practices which will enable the SMEs adopters of this technology to build their own business models (BM). The research methodology is defined as qualitative and exploratory, and relies on case studies acquired from four different SMEs. The results indicate that in order to achieve competitive advantage, each company has successfully combined the dimensions of their own BM in a unique way and enjoyed the benefits offered by CC.