Investigating South African Vendors’ Cloud Computing Value Proposition to Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises: A Case of the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality

Authors

Lucas N. Gumbi, University of South AfricaFollow
Ernest Mnkandla, University of South AfricaFollow

Publication Date

September 2015

Abstract

While Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) are known to contribute significantly to economic growth and reduction of unemployment worldwide, South Africa experiences high failure rate, stagnation and limited growth of SMMEs. Cloud computing, which promises cost efficiencies for SMMEs through its unique outsourcing based business model, is emerging as a viable solution and an excellent value proposition to SMMEs. This study investigated the value proposition of cloud computing vendors to South African SMMEs. The problems addressed in this research are:

- investigating whether the concept of cloud computing and its related key terms are being comprehended by South African SMMEs,

- investigating and identifying the cloud computing applications/services that are most valuable and critical to the growth and development of South African SMMEs,

- investigating and determining the main influences against adoption of cloud computing by SMMEs.

Quantitative research using questionnaires was conducted and the findings of this study inter alia revealed that SMMEs in South Africa do not understand the basic key terms and concepts of cloud computing.