The critical factors for cloud computing adoption during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Abstract

Due to the rapid global spread of the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus, companies and institutions adopted precautionary measures to reduce the risk of contagion, such as asking employees to work remotely from their homes. In this scenario, cloud computing technology has proven to be a great ally of companies to overcome the crisis caused by the pandemic as it provides the necessary infrastructure to access the organizational systems and resources from anyplace, anywhere, and anytime. Although current research identifies important factors for cloud computing adoption, none has yet analyzed whether those are the same given the crisis cause by the pandemic. For this purpose, 18 factors were identified and presented to experts in cloud computing technology, to seek a consensus regarding the order of importance of these factors. Using the Delphi method conducted with two rounds of questions, an ordered list according to the degree of importance of the main factors that influence the adoption of cloud computing was obtained. According to the results, the six most important factors are: (1) adoption, migration, and acquisition cost; (2) availability and accessibility; (3) scalability; (4) cost of data confidentiality and availability loss; (5) security, and (6) customization.