Towards an Integrated Conceptual Model for Cloud Adoption in

Saudi Arabia

Nouf Alkhater

Victor Chang

, Gary Wills

and Robert Walters

Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, U.K.

Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, U.K.

Keywords: Cloud Computing, Adoption, Factors, TOE Framework.

Abstract: There are several advantages of utilising cloud computing in organisations such as cost saving and

flexibility in acquiring resources. The use of cloud computing in developing countries, such as Saudi

Arabia, is still in its early stages and has not been as widely adopted there as in developed countries. In fact,

moving a current system to the cloud depends on many factors that may affect a Saudi Arabian

organisation's decision to adopt the cloud. In order to encourage the adoption of cloud technology it is

essential to understand why some enterprises are more prepared than others to move to the cloud. Hence, the

aim of this research is to examine factors that might impact on a Saudi Arabian organisation's intention to

adopt cloud computing. In this paper, we propose a conceptual model which integrates aspects of the

Technology Organisation Environment (TOE) framework. The proposed model identifies the key factors

that might influence organisations to employ cloud services. Our findings show that all the proposed factors

in the cloud adoption model, except for competitive pressure and trading partner pressure, are statically

significant.

1 INTRODUCTION

Cloud computing is the emerging paradigm of

delivering IT services to end users as a utility service

over the Internet. A number of technologies are used

to make cloud computing happen, including

virtualisation and Web 2.0, and their presence makes

cloud computing more efficient and usable (Jeffery

and Neidecker-Lutz, 2010). The concept of cloud

computing started in the 1960s, but the expression

“cloud computing” became widely popular only in

2007 (Chen et al., 2010). A number of different

proposals, such as grid computing, have been

developed but none of them has achieved cloud

computing’s level of success in offering services to

the general public.

Cloud computing can bring several advantages to

organisations. The cloud can reduce capital

expenditure for both large and small organisations

and enable them to pay only for the services they

consume rather than setting up in-house IT

infrastructure (Buyya et al., 2009). Cloud computing

offers business opportunities and flexibility for

organisations to increase their revenues (Marston et

al., 2011). Despite all these benefits, some

organisations hesitate to migrate their work to the

cloud. To help organisations achieve their long-term

goals, a number of frameworks have been developed

to provide guidelines and recommendations for

cloud adoption, such as Chang et al., (2013) and

Chang (2015).

An interesting observation about the proposed

models and frameworks in previous studies is that

they focus on the costs and benefits of cloud

adoption. Furthermore, there is a lack of empirical

studies conducted to examine the influential factors

for adopting cloud technology at enterprise level

(Low et al., 2011; Borgman et al., 2013).

Additionally, all these adoption cases have focused

on deployment cases in the West; the adoption rate

in the Saudi Arabia is in the beginning phase. Hence,

the aim of this study is to carry out an in-depth

investigation of factors that influence an enterprise’s

decision to use cloud technology in Saudi Arabia.

An integrated conceptual model has been proposed

in order to identify what could drive an organisation

to use cloud services or prevent them from doing so.

The structure of the paper is as it follows.

Section 2 begins with the background of cloud

computing and then provides a critical review of the

Alkhater N., Chang V., Wills G. and Walters R..

Towards an Integrated Conceptual Model for Cloud Adoption in Saudi Arabia.

DOI: 10.5220/0005528400800085

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Emerging Software as a Service and Analytics (ESaaSA-2015), pages 80-85

ISBN: 978-989-758-110-6

 2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

existing work and theories in order to identify

factors that affect an organisation’s decision to adopt

cloud computing. Section 3 presents the conceptual

model for cloud adoption in Saudi Arabia. The

research methodology is discussed in Section 4.

Section 5 provides the preliminary results. Finally,

the summary and future work are presented in

Section 6.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Benefits of Cloud Migration

This section presents the benefits for organisations

that adopt cloud computing. First, cloud computing

offers cost reductions and savings due to the

outsourcing of hardware and services. Organisations

can save on operational costs in that they no longer

have to buy machines, provide a bigger space for

storage, and pay upgrade costs and staffing costs

(Chang, 2015). The responsibilities and costs

involved in improving and upgrading systems are

managed by the cloud service providers (Armbrust

et al., 2010; Buyya et al., 2009; Jeffery and

Neidecker-Lutz, 2010). Secondly, cloud technology

provides an opportunity for organisations to scale

their services easily and tailor these to specific

needs. For example, customised functions can be

designed for the company staff so that they can

perform their tasks quickly and easily. Thirdly,

cloud computing supports green IT since the costs of

buying and maintaining servers are reduced with

fewer carbon emissions and less energy

consumption taking place (Buyya et al., 2012;

Marston et al., 2011). Additionally, enterprises can

design, build and run their applications more

smoothly, since they can be tested in virtual

machines as many times as they like. Finally, the

flexibility of delivering computing services can

drive organisations to migrate their services to the

cloud (Foster et al., 2008).

2.2 A Review of Proposed Approaches

to Cloud Migration

This section reviews existing work and models

related to the migration to cloud computing in order

to explore how far the security issues are considered

in them.

First, Khajeh-Hosseini et al., (2010) reported a

case study that refers to a legacy migration of system

in the gas and oil sector. This study examined the

migration of an IT system from an enterprise data

centre to Amazon’s EC2. The cost analysis of the

company is presented. In addition, the case study

presents the possible advantages and risks linked to

the migration of the system based on the point of

view of managers and other staff, except the security

manager and other security experts. In fact, the most

important views that need to be taken into account

for migration process are those of the security staff.

Their findings indicate that the use of cloud

infrastructure will decrease the enterprise’s costs.

Their results are also useful for decision-making

purposes as they will help analysts to find solutions

to upcoming issues associated with the adoption of a

cloud by enterprises. However, their work does not

take into account the security aspect. In fact, security

is a vital factor in cloud migration and it needs to be

considered as an essential element in the migration

process.

Khajeh-Hosseini et al., (2011a; 2011b) extended

their previous study to develop a toolkit that helps

decision-makers and organisations address their

concerns during the migration process; the toolkit

provides a framework that can be used to evaluate

the migration of businesses from a enterprise data

centre to a public cloud. The first tool consists of a

list of questions; this helps enterprises to determine

whether a public cloud is a suitable technology for

their IT system. The second tool is helpful for the

decision-makers in terms of estimating the costs of

employing a public cloud. Their third tool is a

spreadsheet that demonstrates the possible risks and

benefits associated with a public cloud from a

general organisational perspective. Their evaluation

of the tools based on different case studies focuses

only on the cost model. Indeed, the proposed

methods are a good starting point for risk assessment

and are useful for decision-makers as they cover

some issues regarding migration to a public cloud.

However, this work only considers the cost of the

infrastructure when using one type of cloud (the

public cloud).

Klems et al., (2009) proposed a framework to

measure the costs of using IT infrastructure in the

cloud. They compared it with conventional IT

approaches, such as the cost of setting up in-house

IT infrastructure or a grid computing service. They

dealt with costs in their framework under direct and

indirect costs. IT infrastructure resources are an

example of direct costs, whereas an indirect cost is

incurred by the failure to meet business goals and set

up training courses for the new technology. The

framework was evaluated based on two case studies.

However, their work was in the development phase

and therefore the results are not provided. Also, this

study did not consider the security aspect.

TowardsanIntegratedConceptualModelforCloudAdoptioninSaudiArabia

Hajjat et al., (2010) proposed a model for the

migration of an enterprise’s applications to a hybrid

cloud. The aim of this study was to identify the costs

and benefits of migrating part of the system to the

cloud. The effectiveness of this approach was briefly

evaluated based on a case study of the migration of

applications to the cloud. However, this work does

not mention how the cost can be computed and only

focuses on one type of cloud (the hybrid cloud).

They also did not consider the security aspect.

Hu and Klein (2009) have carried out a study to

investigate privacy issues during migrating e-

commerce applications to the cloud. Their study

suggests that the user’s data and critical business

information must be encrypted during the migration

process. The authors have also studied and

compared existing data encryption methods in

different layers (storage, database, middleware and

application). They argue that the middleware layer

encryption is the most effective approach for

migrating e-commerce applications to the cloud in

terms of performance. The evaluation of their work

was based on a case study for an e-marketplace

application. Indeed, this approach discussed data

encryption, particularly for the transmission of e-

commerce applications to the cloud. This method

helps to ensure privacy of data and provides

protection for applications during the migration

process. Nevertheless, the authors did not point out

how the data and applications would be migrated to

the cloud; they also ignored the other aspects of

security and privacy that need to be considered.

Hao et al., (2009) proposed a cost model that can

be used to determine the type of services included in

migration and their possible location. The model that

they developed used a genetic algorithm to provide

an effective decision for service migration, by

looking for the most optimal migration decisions. In

this study, besides considering the cost of service

migration, they evaluated the cost of consistency

maintenance and communication. It is important to

have strong decision support for the infrastructure

support, prior to migration. However, the authors

omit security in the migration process and they deal

only with the security aspect that involves accessing

the control process by proposed mutual

authentication using certificate authority.

Kaisler and Money (2011) have conducted a

study to investigate issues associated with service

migration to a cloud, as well as the security

problems involved with service implementation.

They considered several security challenges. It is

noticeable that this study simply lists the possible

challenges without any evaluation; it also ignores the

security aspects in the migration process.

2.3 A Review of Proposed Models for

the Adoption of New Technologies

This section describes relevant theories and

frameworks for the adoption of new technologies. It

includes the TOE framework, the Diffusion of

Innovations (DOI) theory and the institutional

theory, which have been widely adopted by

researchers.

Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990) proposed the

TOE framework to analyse the acceptance of new IT

technologies at an organisational level. The TOE

framework investigates the impact of three factors,

Technology, Organisation and Environment, on the

organisation’s decision to adopt a new technology.

According to Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990) and

Chau and Tam (1997), TOE can be summarised as

follows:

 The technology aspect describes the internal and

external characteristics of the new technology

and how adopting a new technology can

influence the organisation.

 The organisational context is focused on

different measures that can influence the

direction of the organisation, for example, firm

size and scope of interests.

 The environmental context refers to the

characteristics of the environment where an

organisation operates its business and might have

a significant impact on their decision.

Government regulation and competitors are an

example of the environmental context.

The DOI was proposed by Rogers (1995). DOI is a

widely used theory in information system research to

examine user acceptance of new ideas and

technologies. The DOI theory presents five attributes

that have a direct influence on adoption rate: relative

advantage, complexity, compatibility, trialability and

observability.

The institutional theory is one of the common

theories usually used for explaining the adoption of

IT technologies (Scott and Christensen, 1995; Scott,

2001). The different between the TOE framework

and institutional theory is that institutional theory

contains two important elements (trading partner

pressure and competitors) in the environmental

context of the TOE framework which might play an

important role in an organisation’s decision to adopt

new technologies.

The other models which have been built based on

previous theories in order to identify the factors that

affect on a firm's decision to implement cloud

computing are presented in a previous work

ESaaSA2015-WorkshoponEmergingSoftwareasaServiceandAnalytics

(Alkhater et al., 2014).

3 CONCEPTUAL MODEL

As discussed in Section 1, some of the proposed

frameworks and models do not fully address the in-

depth investigations on what factors influence cloud

adoption for organisations. The TOE framework has

been widely adopted and is a suitable model for

improvement since it has a proven track record of

successful integration (Tornatzky and Fleischer,

1990; Chau and Tam, 1997). Additionally, another

benefit of using the TOE framework is that this

framework predicts and examines the adoption of

technology based on three aspects: technology

context, organisation context and environment

context.

In this paper, an integrated model has been

proposed to identify factors that impact on an

enterprise’s intent to adopt the cloud services in

Saudi Arabia. The initial model has been constructed

by integrating aspects of the TOE framework and

combining the most important factors from the DOI

theory and institutional theory along with other

factors (trust, privacy and physical location) that

have not yet been investigated in any previous

studies as main factors that may have an impact on

the organisation’s decision to adopt cloud services.

The conceptual model for cloud computing adoption

in Saudi Arabia is presented in Figure 1. Moreover,

Table 1 identifies factors involved in the cloud

adoption model; the details of these proposed factors

were discussed in a previous work (Alkhater et al.,

2014).

Table 1: The factors identified for cloud adoption.

Factors Sub-dimensions

Technological Factors

Availability

Reliability

Security

Privacy

Trust

Relative advantage

Compatibility

Complexity

Organisational Factors

Top management support

Organisation size

Technology readiness

Environmental Factors

Compliance with regulations

Competitive pressure

Trading partner pressure

Physical location

Figure 1: A conceptual model for cloud computing

adoption.

4 METHODOLOGY

An expert review is a simple method that enables

researchers to collect data from experts who have

knowledge of the topic under study. This technique

can be used in quantitative, qualitative or mixed

methods at different stages of the study (Tessmer,

1993). In this initial study, semi-structured

interviews were used for collecting data from twenty

IT experts working in IT departments in different

Saudi organisations. The study population includes

IT staff or managers. The aim of the interviewing IT

experts was to review factors that were previously

identified in Section 3. A second objective was to

discover other factors left unstated in former studies.

The interviewees in this study were working in

various sectors, such as petrochemicals, oil and gas

and engineering, in large organisations and small

and medium-sized enterprises with at least five

years’ working experience in IT. Seven of the

participants in this study were working in companies

that had already adopted cloud computing, while

thirteen (65%) of them were not.

5 RESULTS

This section shows the results of this preliminary

study. In this study the participants were asked

closed-ended questions about all the factors which

were stated previously in Section 3. The purpose of

the questions was to measure the importance of the

identified factors in the proposed model for cloud

adoption from an expert perspective. The closed-

ended questions were designed using a five-point

TowardsanIntegratedConceptualModelforCloudAdoptioninSaudiArabia

Likert scale, which ranged from 5 (very important)

to 1 (not relevant). SPSS software was used to

analyse the collected data from IT experts; the test

value was identified as 3. Table 2 presents the

results of using the one-sample t-test.

In this study Bonferroni correction was used for

controlling for false positive results by dividing

alpha (α) by the number of factors included in the

questionnaire.

(α/n) = 0.05/15 = 0.0033 (1)

Table 2: One-sample t-test.

Factors p-value Result

Availability <0.001

Statistically

significant

Reliability <0.001

Statistically

significant

Security <0.001

Statistically

significant

Privacy <0.001

Statistically

significant

Trust <0.001

Statistically

significant

Relative advantage <0.001

Statistically

significant

Compatibility <0.001

Statistically

significant

Complexity <0.001

Statistically

significant

Top management support <0.001

Statistically

significant

Organisation size .003

Statistically

significant

Technology readiness <0.001

Statistically

significant

Compliance with regulations <0.001

Statistically

significant

Competitive pressure .008

Not statistically

significant

Trading partner pressure .148

Not statistically

significant

Physical location <0.001

Statistically

significant

It is interesting to note that most of organisations

taking part in this preliminary study were concerned

about privacy, security and trust issues and this was

one of the major reasons behind their decisions not

to use cloud services. Furthermore, there were other

factors that were suggested by experts, such as

compatibility, compliance with regulations and cost

savings, and organisations need to take these into

account before employing the cloud services. Most

of these factors already exist in the proposed model

for cloud adoption.

In order to measure the reliability of the results,

Cronbach's alpha was used in this initial study.

According to Hinton (2004) and Field (2009), a

value from 0.9 and above is considered highly

reliable and from 0.7 to 0.8 is acceptable. The

Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of this study was

0.719, which is considered to be an acceptable value.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The great benefit of cloud technology is that the

cloud offers resources to multiple users at any time

in a dynamic way and according to user needs. In

addition, users only pay for the services that they

consume. However, despite the fact that the cloud

offers various benefits for enterprises, from

flexibility to cost reduction, moving data from an in-

house data centre to the cloud is not a simple task.

Therefore, this study seeks ways to encourage

organisations to adopt cloud services in Saudi

Arabia as well as to investigate the factors that affect

the implementation of this technology. This paper

presents the initial model for cloud adoption in

Saudi Arabia and in future a survey will be

conducted to validate the developed model. Further

outcomes will be published shortly.

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TowardsanIntegratedConceptualModelforCloudAdoptioninSaudiArabia