Value creation in the cloud: Understanding business model factors affecting value of cloud computing

Despite the rapid emergence of cloud technology, its prevalence and accessibility to all types of organizations and its potential to predominantly shift competitive landscapes by providing a new platform for creating and delivering business value, empirical research on the business value of cloud computing, and in particular how service providers create value for their customers, is quite limited. Of what little research exists to date, most focuses on technical issues. This paper aims to address this research gap by exploring how cloud technologies are used to create business value and identifying factors that may impact the realization of business value. Drawing on four case studies that considers the perspective of both service provider and customer, this study takes a more comprehensive perspective of the business model concept in examining business value than has been done to date in the cloud domain, thus contributing to the limited literature surrounding the area.