Sectorial Adoption Analysis of Cloud Computing by Examining the Dissatisfier Landscape

Cloud computing in many ways can be viewed as both a technology offering and a business alternative. But its adoption today is driven more by economic rationale than by technology justifications. Cloud, being a new offering, is bound to run into a lot of inertia in terms of its initial market acceptance. This inertia is driven by the dissatisfiers - some real and some perceptional - that inhibit a widespread adoption. The four key adoption inhibitors identified in the context of cloud adoption are vendor related risk, security related risk, no-gain risk and efficiency related risk. These inhibitors are examined, in terms of their relative impact, across four industry sectors - SME, BFS, Education and Hospitals. This study mainly aims at equipping the cloud vendors with information regarding the relative risk perceptions of the four mentioned inhibitors on a sector by sector basis. The paper posits that this understanding will facilitate the cloud computing vendors to improve product conceptualization at the production level and fine-tune product positioning at the sales and marketing level to enhance market penetration. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]