Cloud Computing as Innovation: Cases and Practices

Abstract

Cloud computing represents a potential crossing point. But we also point out that our research over four years has found time and again that it takes a huge amount of effort to make Cloud work to scale for large organizations, for the long term. It is all too easy to overestimate the likely short-term impacts of cloud computing but also underestimate the long-term effects. Our previous research (Willcocks et al. 2014) suggests five major trends:

• 1. Cloud computing is becoming the harbinger of the service dimension in the external IT and business services industry.

• 2. A continuing evolution from offering IT products to providing business services.

• 3. In-house IT leaders becoming high-performing and business-savvy IT-sourcing architects.

• 4. A reconfiguration of the supply industry that will take much longer than five years to feel its full impact.

• 5. Innovations in business models. Except for those “born in the cloud,” it could take at least a decade beyond 2020–2025, to work through transformations for the vast majority of organizations.

Appendix: The Research Base

The research covered the 2011–2015 period in which we carried out three surveys of clients and service providers (2011, 2013, 2014/15), and did in-depth research into the cloud experiences and practices of 75 SMEs and large corporations in Europe, Asia Pacific and the USA. Representative publications which are drawn upon in this chapter include Lacity, M., and Reynolds, P. (2014). “Cloud Services Practices for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises”. MIS Quarterly Executive, 13 (1): 31–44; Willcocks, L.P., Venters, W., and Whitley, E. (2014). Moving to the Cloud Corporation. Palgrave, London; Willcocks, L.P., Venters, W., and Whitley, E. (2013). “Cloud Sourcing and Innovation—Slow Train Coming? A Composite Research Study”. Strategic Outsourcing: An International Journal, 6 (2): 181–202. Willcocks, L.P., Venters, W., and Whitley, Edgar A. (2013). “Cloud Computing as Innovation: Studying Diffusion”. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 163: 117–131. Willcocks, L.P., Venters, W., and Whitley, E. (2012). Cloud Computing and Retained Capabilities: Recent Research. Proceedings of the Sixth Global Sourcing Workshop, March 10–13, Courchevel, France; Oshri, I., Kotlarsky, J., and Willcocks, L.P. (2015). The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring, Third Edition. Palgrave, London. Willcocks, L.P., Schlagwein, D., and Thorogood, A. (2015). Cloud Computing Research: Trends, Challenges, Lessons. LSE Outsourcing Unit Working Paper 15/1/, LSE, London; Lacity, M., Reynolds, P., Khan, S., and Willcocks, L.P. (2014). Cloud Services: The Great Equalizer for SMEs? LSE Outsourcing Unit Research Paper 14/1. Bhimani, A., and Willcocks, L.P. (2014). Digitization, Big Data and the Transformation of Accounting Information. Accounting and Business Research, 44 (4): 469–490. Schlagwein, D., Thorogood, A., and Willcocks, L.P. (2014). “How Commonwealth Bank of Australia Gained Benefits Using a Standards Based, Multi-Provider Cloud Model”. MISQ Executive, 13 (4): 209–222.