Challenges of value creation through cloud SAAS: business/IT alignment in service oriented industries

Ali, MB; Wood-Harper, T; Ramlogan, R

Abstract

Although Business/IT alignment has gathered much interest in the past, it still presents a challenge for service sector companies facing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) sourcing. Such companies lack managerial experience and competency of using ubiquitous technologies and SaaS applications in order to create business value. This paper provides evidence on how SaaS strengthens alignment between IT and business strategies and how it indirectly creates value for service sector enterprises. We employ semi-structured interviews and case studies to determine how aligning business strategy with SaaS - enabled IT strategy can lead to value creation. We found out that the features of SaaS such as on-demand self-service, rapid elasticity and measured service are considered advantageous by the companies, whilst dependence on a single vendor, incompatibility and information security were considered as a disadvantage. Future research could explore other cloud service models, such as Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to reveal how and why other cloud service applications can succeed or fail supporting Business-IT alignment.

Citation

Ali, M., Wood-Harper, T., & Ramlogan, R. Challenges of value creation through cloud SAAS: business/IT alignment in service oriented industries. Presented at UK Academy for Information Systems Conference proceedings 2020, Oxford, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: UK Academy for Information Systems Conference proceedings 2020
• Conference Location: Oxford, UK
• Deposit Date: Sep 9, 2022
• Publisher URL: https://aisel.aisnet.org/ukais2020/18
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference