Factors Influencing Cloud-Computing Adoption in Small and Medium E-Commerce Enterprises in Jordan

Abstract

Adoption of cloud computing provides great benefits especially to e-commerce small and medium enterprises (SME) in the developing countries. as such businesses need to serve their customers and business partners effectively. This entails companies to use strong infrastructures that offer latest technologies in terms of hardware and software. However, the economical tough conditions may hurdle such endeavor and therefore SME need to adopt new solutions. Cloud computing as a new IT capability can solve many problems to SME in terms of cost, technology, and availability. Many SMEs in developing countries are still reluctant to adopt such technology. This research investigates the main factors that impact adoption of cloud computing by interviewing 16 managers of e-commerce SME and analyzes the collected data qualitatively. Results show that need, cost, security, and reliability are major factors that impact cloud computing adoption.