A contingency model for assessing cloud composite capabilities

Cloud computing present new economic and flexible business and technological models. The explosive uptake of cloud solutions has fuelled the growth of cloud service providers (CSP). However, recent development show that within the field of cloud computing there is often too much focus on technology solutions but little insight on cloud exploitation and service analytics from a business perspective. To support CSPs and cloud users, it is critical that sourcing decisions are informed to align cloud strategy and service capabilities. In this paper we present a contingency model which supports the assessment of cloud composite capabilities. While we develop an understanding of the research gaps which exists throughout academic and industry literature, the contribution of this paper is the introduction of our contingency model which forms the initial development of the Cloud Service Index (CSI). The CSI is a basis to assess cloud composite capabilities.