The challenges of cloud adoption among South African small to medium enterprises: a thematic analysis

The successful use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) remains a persistent problem within developing economies where they face several technical and skills-related challenges. Although cloud services can mitigate some of these challenges, many SMEs fail to adopt cloud services. Therefore, the main objective of this paper was to develop key recommendations (based on a high-level cloud services adoption framework) which South African SMEs could use to guide them in their adoption of cloud services. To develop our recommendations, we conducted 13 semi-structured interviews with nine South African SMEs within the Eastern Cape province. These were thematically analyzed and the findings used to create a high-level cloud services adoption framework. Our findings indicate that technical expertise (i.e., knowledge) amongst SMEs plays a vital role in the cloud adoption process. Those SMEs who do realize the importance of such technical expertise often use intermediaries to achieve successful adoption of cloud services. We also found evidence to suggest that SMEs generally do not carry out comprehensive cloud adoption preparatory activities, consequently failing in their adoption of cloud services.