5.1 Chapter Overview
The preceding chapter provided a description of the questionnaire and interviews used in the data collection from the selected IT managers from different sectors (small/medium) and cloud technology architects and IT managers for cloud operations. This chapter proceeds to the next stage of the research process which involves the presentation of the results and their implementation to develop the artefact design. The design would be used as guidance on the transition from traditional IT models to the cloud-based models by improving the ability of the IT managers in managing associated organizational resources for cloud services. The artefact would be inclusive of the cloud operations, roles and responsibilities related to cloud operations, and KPI’s to measure the success of implementations.
5.2 Respondents Background
The first section of both the questionnaires intended to evaluate the background of the different respondents used in the study. Nevertheless, the questionnaire respondents were sourced from the small, medium and large institutions. Their background information is as shown in table 2;
Table 2: Respondents Background
| Background factor | Variables | Frequency (%) | Total Numbers |
| Gender | Male | 66 | 33 |
| Female | 34 | 17 | |
| Category of the Business | Small | 34 | 17 |
| Medium | 34 | 17 | |
| Large | 32 | 16 | |
| Experience working as an IT manager in the business | Less than 2 years | 12 | 6 |
| 2-5 Years | 14 | 7 | |
| 6-8 Years | 24 | 12 | |
| Over 8 Years | 50 | 25 |
The survey results analysis indicates that a total of 50 respondents N=50 completed the questionnaire survey. From this sample size, the majority of the expert’s representatives were male at 66% while the remaining were female at 34%. This is a true representation of the general population in Kuwait where a majority of the IT specialists are males with only a small population representing the females (Young, 2016). In this regard, the findings from the study meets the real situation in the ground. Further, in regard to the business type, This included small for 34%, medium for 34% and large for 32%. According to a report by Kar et al. (2011), the Kuwait economy has been experiencing an upsurge in their growth evident in the small and medium enterprises. Also, due to the positive work environment, the large enterprises continue to strengthen their dominance in their industry of operations. In regard to the experience in working as IT managers, the majority of the respondents at 50% had an experience of over 8 years, 24% for 6-8 years, 14% for 2-5 years and only 12% for less than 2 years. Similarly, in the interviews, they had an experience of between 3 and 5 years in working in their respective roles. The statistics on experience are in line with the existing report on the view that the technology growth in Kuwait and Middle East has been more prominent in the last 8 years (Sarwar and Hassan, 2015). Within this period, many individuals have been able to integrate the use of cloud computing in their business operations as a best practice of operation. Hence, the study results can be identified as being in line with the prevalent industry characteristics that distinguish them with other competitors and other players in the same industry.
5.3 Indicators of Adoption of Cloud Computing Services
To set the scene for the survey and foundation of the Artefact, the respondents were asked on the potential indicators to adopt cloud computing services in the context of the areas of focus. The questions posed were based on the characteristics of the processes of cloud operations and roles and responsibilities related to cloud operators. From figure 6, majority of the respondents at an average mean of 4.26 noted that the adoption of the cloud computing services is evident from reducing the costs associated with the increased use of information systems. Additionally, a significant number of the respondents at an average mean of 4.24 observed on the need of making their operations high effective and agility. Also, 4.04 is ensuring that IT managers are managing their organizational resources for cloud services and their area of operations. The adoption is also inclusive of ensuring standardization of all organisation operations at 3.86 and the need for enhanced technological development. The least number of respondents pointed out the need for extensive use of technology services through innovativeness and ensuring standardization of all organisation operations at an average mean of 3.36.
Figure 7: Indicators of Adoption of Cloud Computing Services
5.4 Opportunities for Cloud Services in the KUWAIT Market and Available Resources
Part of the study focus was to create a framework that can improve the ability of IT managers in managing associated organizational resources for cloud services. In this case, respondents were asked on the available opportunities for cloud services and resources are available for the opportunity’s exploitation. This is a critical part of the IT artefact that would be used as part of the measure of the success of implementation. From the respondents figure 8, it is evident that the most critical opportunity available for the use by the companies in KUWAIT is the business potential of mining structured and unstructured data for management and marketing insights and IT managers active involvement in the management of sourcing insights from the sourced data at 20%. This was closely followed by the IT managers being actively involved in managing and sourcing insights from the sourced data and presence of big data opportunities at 15%. Others included the massive computing infrastructure (5%) and active management of cloud services for market responsiveness at 5%.
Figure 8: Opportunities for Cloud Services in the KUWAIT Market and Available Resources
5.5 Role of IT Managers in the Management of Cloud Services Organisational Resources in the Kuwait Market
IT managers play an instrumental role in ensuring a successful transition from traditional to modern cloud operation management framework and management of organizational resources for cloud services. As part of the artefact design, this question would guide an understanding of the roles and responsibilities related to cloud operations. It is in this regard that the respondents were asked on the roles played by the IT managers in ensuring a successful transition from the traditional to modern cloud operation management framework. As shown in figure 9, The critical role that has been noted to be played by the IT managers is creating awareness to the organisation management on the impact of cloud computing integration at an average mean of 4.32. This was closely followed by respondents at an average mean of 4.12 who pointed out on the need for integrating a stable hardware and software system to ensuring reusability of cloud and extensibility of their overall operations. Additionally, the respondents noted that IT managers must equally improve the processing power of the organisation by connecting remote computers in different geographical locations at a mean value of 4.04. A few of the respondents at an average mean of 3.88 observed that they are involved in integrating a stable hardware and software system for ensuring increased reusability of cloud and extensibility of their overall operations.
Figure 9: Opportunities for Cloud Services in the KUWAIT Market and Available Resources
5.6 Measures adopted by IT Managers and Service Providers in ensuring their Channels are Cloud Ready with Resources Available
It is essential for an organisation IT managers to ensure that they are best positioned in the IT model of their organisation. The model would be inclusive of the operation management framework improving on the ability of IT managers in managing the associated organizational resources for cloud services. It is in this regard that the respondents were asked to demonstrate on them believe that the IT managers play a critical role in the management of the organizational resources for the cloud services. From the findings sourced from the analysis in figure 10, it is evident that majority of the respondents at an average mean of 4.4 observed that the most effective approach in ensuring utilization of resources is by the ability to manage the organizational resources for cloud services and inclusive of storage, computing applications among other services. This is closely followed by the need for intermediary roles to increase the levels of opportunities of end-user for accessing high quality and most effective and available cloud services at an average mean of 4.2. Further, it is evident that the IT managers and service providers plays the role of ensuring that consumers are managed in switching from a single provider to others which is as a consequence of high switching costs arising from the diverse technologies at an average mean of 4.08. This is a small average mean of the respondents noted that the IT managers possess sufficient knowledge on the cloud operation management framework through a leverage on the available resources.
Figure 10: Position and Roles of IT Managers and Channel
5.7 Challenges faced by IT Managers and Partners in their Transition from Traditional to Cloud Business Models
In the IT artefact, the KPIs would be used in assessing the success of implementations. Nevertheless, with the existence of the challenges, it would not be possible for the IT managers to lead to the implementation of the cloud business models successfully. The existence of the challenges and the need of KPIs was done by a correlation of the challenges encountered by IT managers and channel partners in overcoming the service management in cloud operations and the measures of increasing the organisation readiness for the cloud business framework. This is since cloud computing is comprised of a set of network-enabled services offering scalable and guaranteed personalized, inexpensive computing platforms on demand which can be accessed in a more simple and pervasive approach. This is as demonstrated in table 3 below.
Table 3: Correlation of the Challenges encountered by IT Managers and Measures of the effective increase in the organisation readiness for cloud business framework
| Correlations | |||
| Challenges | Measures | ||
| Challenges | Pearson Correlation | 1 | 0.705 |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | .00 | ||
| N | 50 | 50 | |
| Measures | Pearson Correlation | 0.705 | 1 |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | .00 | ||
| N | 50 | 50 |
From the correlation analysis, it is evident that the Pearson correlation value was 0.705. This is a significant correlation as it is above 0.5. Hence, it can be noted that the existence of the challenges such as Lack of sufficient financial capabilities limited to vendor determined applications without choices, Technical challenges for achieving successful compatibility and integration of cloud computing with IT infrastructure. Others include lack of sufficient knowledge for the transition from traditional to the modern cloud computing system and Lack of support from the organisation management are all critical to the success of the cloud computing. In this regard, the key performance measures as indicators that could appropriately be adopted would include the adoption of appropriate service strategy, service strategies, appropriate deployment model and integration of successful digital business platforms. Nevertheless, as shown in graph 5 below, IT managers have sufficient capability and knowledge in managing all organizational resources for cloud services characterized by a coordinated cloud management framework.
Figure 11: IT managers sufficient capability and knowledge
The rationale of the respondent’s findings from the survey would be informed by the view that in the traditional IT environment, an increased complex management issues of software, hardware, and networking equipment demand the presence of specialist staff for implementing and maintaining their IT services. In all the organizations, successful adoption of cloud computing leads to delivery of tangible business benefits in some instances leading to lower cost as they only pay for demanded and provision of increased returns on investment of their limited available resources.
5.8 Framework Evaluation and Validation
In order to ascertain of the developed IT artefact would be effective in improving the ability of IT managers to manage the cloud services organizational resources, IT managers interviews were done. In regard to the interview respondents, the selected IT managers were 3 from the banks, 1 from the government and 1 from the oil and gas.
The interview session was also inclusive of evaluation of the effectiveness of their organisation cloud operation management framework in their company operations. From the banker’s respondents, they all noted that their cloud operations were based on enhancing their customers in being cloud-ready in their operations, improving the transactions processes, and increased recurrent revenue streams from the subscription licenses. The findings are collaborated with the reviewed study which had identified opportunities in the artefact design and results highlighting the prevalence of the cloud services have equally been supported by previous research as reviewed in the study. Gutierrez et al. (2015) for instance deduced that cloud computing would progressively gain increased popularity in the developed and developing nations due to its potential to transform the fixed costs linked with technological infrastructure into the variable costs. Ackermann et al. (2012) equally generated a prediction that a consistent generation of big data by entities of all sizes would have a positive impact of increasing the demand for sophisticated analytical solutions. The results in this study hence find out that the cloud computing is an area of preference by the majority of enterprises in Kuwait and the Middle East as opposed to the traditional computing solutions as it facilitates a subscription-oriented billing. The results and artefact design further indicate that small enterprises can hence afford using cloud solutions as they only pay for the used services.
Another core theme in both the interview data and the literature review was that there exist different forms of opportunities form the utilization of the cloud computing and the resources available. The Interviewees observed that the use of a hybrid model for keeping the critical data and channel intermediary to generate skills, distribution, and integration. Further, they noted on the need for enhanced security and easier access to the data since the government tend to deal with highly sensitive data in their operations. This was nevertheless different from the last respondent view who observed on the service-oriented operations anchored on the organisation operations in the oil and gas industry. This is equally supported by extant literature that notes that while the IT managers facilitate the cloud vendors role in the delivery of the cloud services to the end user firms, the transaction costs, particularly in line with the small entities, are extensively prohibitive (Xun, 2012).
The opportunities for the cloud services in the KUWAIT market have equally been affirmed by the interviews. For instance, the interviewee 1 observed that they have been working on a plan for an active digitization in the verge of the transition process. For the government respondent 4, they noted on an increase in cloud consumption based on the level of the consumer awareness/education of the products and their overall benefits. This was closely different from views by respondent 5 who noted on the need of having sufficient resources for migration to the cloud management framework and active sourcing of a comprehensive assistance from all third parties with that capability. Hence, it is evident that all the involved stakeholders have a critical role to play in ensuring success linked to their cloud operations.
The interview process developed a thought-provoking parallel between the managers roles in implementing an active use of resources using the cloud operation management framework. IT managers plays the role of a fulfilment vehicle for their solutions (traditional and cloud-based) with an elaborate understanding of their clients and the organisation to create a progressive roadmap which is a win-win for clients and their organisation. It was observed in the interviews that the role of the IT manager is offering consultancy services, onsite services, integration and bundling/customization of their overall cloud offerings emerging as most critical and prominent value-added services which are the most prominent in the banking sector. In regard to the government context, the respondents pointed out that the IT managers plays an appropriate and guided planning skills influencing on the distinct enterprises included in the organisation for a successful transition from the traditional operations in management to a more guided and modernized operations. Therefore, it can be argued that the IT managers creates an instrumental role in ensuring a successful management of organizational resources for cloud services.
Finally, the interviews findings equally supported the views from the questionnaire regarding the challenges faced by the IT managers due to lack of sufficient capability and knowledge. The interviewees observed that the significant issue is the security hence a need for establishing themselves as trusted business advisors. The challenges faced are coupled by an increased unexpected cost in their operations, interoperability, existing security gaps and unanticipated application rework which all can elicit a more harnessed approach of mitigating the faced obstacles. The interview pointed out on the need for building know-how, security of their data and integration between systems on the cloud and local systems. Also, the cloud migration issues including the costs, interoperability, security gaps, and unanticipated application rework would end up creating significant obstacles. Further, it was noted that the need for proper planning skills among enterprises for the purpose of transition from a CAPEX model to a subscription model and inclusive of overcoming skill deficiencies in terms of setting up distinct enterprises in making the use of cloud-based models. This is similar to other studies which had pointed out that there must be an integrated framework that is characterized by cloud service provider deploying the virtualized hardware. The findings are an indication that the framework is reliably applicable in non-IT contexts in an environment where the target audience is found to be sharing similar motivational preferences with other involved groups.