UNEXPECTED DIGITAL EXPERIMENT: CLOUD COMPUTING AS SOLUTION FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD?

Abstract

The recent events that have taken place globally, often characterized as facilitators of unexpected changes in almost all fields of activity, determined new key directions to be followed, the potential for their future support and development being also realized. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the entrepreneurial activity itself has undergone sudden shifts, conducted by the desire to survive in uncertain times. As a result, the main actors involved in the entrepreneurial processes have chosen either to focus on the existing business solutions expansion, or on the creation and adoption of new ones, both options offering, in fact, alternatives to the traditional business models. On the other hand, the national lockdowns have led to an intensive digital transformation, especially of the entrepreneurial field, but not only. In this regard, cloud computing became a certain direction of interest for practitioners. Hence, an unforeseen digital trial resulted. While the pandemic accelerated the migration to cloud as a solution to survive in a different market context, the question is how the entrepreneurs will perceive this option in a post-pandemic world? Undoubtedly, the implementation of future action decisions involves the detailed analysis of the potential benefits and of the relationship between the involved inputs and the expected outputs.Under these circumstances, the main aim of the present research is to highlight the significance of cloud computing during and post-pandemic, taking into consideration the entrepreneurial activity. In order to achieve the stated goal, both fundamental and empirical approaches were considered. The research results illustrate the discrepancies between the countries in terms of adopting cloud computing solutions for entrepreneurial activity, considering the evidence obtained during and post-pandemic. Additionally, the opportunities and challenges of cloud computing adoption were discussed.