Factors affecting the adoption of cloud computing in small medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia

This paper has an aim to study the relationship between system quality, need for cloud computing, cost effectiveness, and cloud computing adoption. The study was conducted in Malaysian small and medium enterprises. Although it has been found that there are benefits and opportunities that cloud can provide, the research in this area is still lack. Mostly the previous works mainly focused on the adoption effect on the companies and also the technical issues that happened while implementing cloud computing. In order to get the main goal and the objective of the current research, the quantitative method was used. A self-administered survey approach was chosen with the sample frame that included the managers who use the computing resources during their daily business operations. The final research sample had 225 questionnaires. To analyse the data, the structural equation modelling (SEM) techniques were used. The results of the analysis showed that in order to design a security model to reduce the risk related to data and information management and to ensure efficient and timely transfer of organizational data, a good care should be taken. The SMEs having good knowledge of cloud computing practices and the good planning by the organization can help to grow cloud-computing services in the near future to improve its competitiveness. Moreover, security processes of service provider have to be assessed based on their consistency and adequacy with MEs information security processes. 2017 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.