Running While Standing Still: Rethinking ICT Business Model Decisions for the New Cloud Economy

Cloud computing has underpinned an accelerated business model evolution for delivering ICT solutions. However, some established business model mature ICT providers are experiencing substantial difficulties related to the formulation of effective business models. Currently, there is dearth of IS research relating to deciphering how large business model mature ICT providers can effectively formalise and sustain competitive cloud enabled business model decisions. Thus, in order to extend the extant research, we derive a conceptual framework as a reference model which is based on business model and decision making theory. We then apply our framework to an in-depth case study of an established large ICT provider (Alpha) who have been provisioning cloud services for the past five years. Our findings reveal how the case organisation are executing their core business model decisions along increasingly specific decision making levels in order to effectively sustain their competitiveness. Our analysis provides new insight into the role of using the business model as a focusing device for enabling the effective provision of cloud technology.