benefits and barriers of migrating erp systems to the...
TRANSCRIPT
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud
A study submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Masters in Information Systems
at
THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD
by
Chirag Jayantilal Gala
September 2012
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
2 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Acknowledgement
My gratitude is to my project supervisor Dr. Alex Peng for his wonderful guidance and
continuous mentorship given to me throughout the study at “The University of Sheffield”.
Without your support and continual encouragement, this project could not to be completed
successfully.
I would also like to thank my parents and all friends for providing assistance and moral
support during the study at The University of Sheffield.
And finally, I would like to thank all the experts who had given their valuable time from their
busy schedules for the interviews in this research.
Thank You
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
3 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Abstract
Enterprises have been following the traditional way of implementing their ERP
systems onto internal servers using Client-Server architecture. With the emergence of
Cloud computing, this traditional approach of implementing ERP systems is
confronted by Cloud providers who also provide storage space for enterprise
applications and claiming to provide enormous noticeable benefits to the enterprises
by helping them in decreasing their expenses on the IT infrastructure and give them
opportunity to concentrate on their core-business instead of the IT and infrastructure
issues. SMEs are a part of this new contribution from the Cloud service providers but
the big enterprises in the ERP sectors are slightly hesitant in implementing their ERP
systems to the cloud.
The focus of this study, therefore, lies in identifying the benefits and barriers in
migrating ERP systems to the cloud. To identify these benefits and barriers, the basic
concepts about ERP and Cloud computing were studied. The aims and objectives
defined earlier during the research study formed the basis of creating an ontology
framework which further was used to create questionnaire which helped in collecting
the perception of IT professionals. And finally all the information gathered from the
literature review and the interviews were analysed using quantitative approach.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
4 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Table of Contents 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 7
1.1 Background .............................................................................................................. 7
1.2 Problem Statement .................................................................................................. 8
1.3 Research Aim and Objectives ................................................................................... 9
1.4 Project Justification ................................................................................................ 10
1.5 Research Methodology .......................................................................................... 10
1.6 Structure of Dissertation ........................................................................................ 10
2. An overview of ERP systems on the cloud ..................................................................... 12
2.1 ERP systems ........................................................................................................... 12
2.1.1 Definition of ERP Systems .............................................................................. 12
2.1.2 Current ERP Deployment methods ................................................................ 12
2.1.3 Disadvantages of installing ERP systems on local server ............................... 14
2.2 Cloud computing .................................................................................................... 15
2.2.1 Emergence of Cloud computing ..................................................................... 15
2.2.2 Difference between Stand-alone, Client-server and Cloud Architecture ...... 16
2.3 ERP and Cloud computing ...................................................................................... 17
2.3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 17
2.4 Green IT and Cloud Computing .............................................................................. 18
2.5 Benefits of migrating ERP system to the cloud ...................................................... 20
2.6 Barriers of migrating ERP systems to Cloud ........................................................... 24
2.7 Traditional ERP versus ERP on cloud ...................................................................... 28
3. The Ontology Framework .............................................................................................. 29
3.1 What is Ontology? .................................................................................................. 29
3.2 The Ontology Framework for benefits ................................................................... 30
3.3 The Ontology Framework for barriers ................................................................... 32
3.4 Summary ................................................................................................................ 34
4. Methodology .................................................................................................................. 34
4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 34
4.2 Research approach................................................................................................. 34
4.3 Research Method ................................................................................................... 36
4.3.1 Research design ............................................................................................. 36
4.4 Participants ............................................................................................................ 37
4.5 Questionnaire Design ............................................................................................. 38
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
5 Information School, The University of Sheffield
4.6 Data collection ....................................................................................................... 39
4.6.1 Questionnaires Supervision ........................................................................... 40
4.7 Data Analysis .......................................................................................................... 40
4.7.1 Consolidation of Data..................................................................................... 40
4.7.2 Tools and Techniques ..................................................................................... 40
4.8 Summary ................................................................................................................ 40
5. Findings of the questionnaire survey ............................................................................. 41
5.1 Survey Participant’s Demographics ....................................................................... 41
5.2 Survey Participant’s Company Size ........................................................................ 41
5.3 Analysis of Benefits of migrating ERP systems to the cloud .................................. 43
5.3.1 Benefits of migrating ERP systems to the cloud: Univariate analysis ............ 43
5.3.2 Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud: Univariate analysis............. 50
5.4 Summary ................................................................................................................ 57
6. Conclusions and Recommendations .............................................................................. 57
6.1 Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 57
6.2 Limitations of the research .................................................................................... 59
6.3 Recommendations ................................................................................................. 60
6.4 Scope of further research ...................................................................................... 61
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 62
Appendix A: Questionnaire .................................................................................................... 67
Appendix B Ethics Application Form ..................................................................................... 81
Appendix C Information Sheet ............................................................................................... 86
Access to Dissertation form ................................................................................................... 91
Employment Destination form .............................................................................................. 92
Confirmation of Address form ............................................................................................... 93
Index of Tables
Table 1: Difference between Stand-alone, Client-server and Cloud Architecture
Table 2: Comparison between Traditional ERP and Cloud ERP
Table 3: Frequency table for Technical benefits
Table 4: Frequency table for Operational benefits
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
6 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Table 5: Frequency table for Strategic benefits
Table 6: Mean and Standard deviation for benefits
Table 7: Rankings of the benefits
Table 8: Frequency table for technical barriers
Table 9: Frequency table for operational barriers
Table 10: Frequency table for strategic barriers
Table 11: Mean and standard deviation for barriers
Table 12: Ranking of barriers
Index of Figures
Fig 1: Theoretical ontology framework for benefits.
Fig 2: Theoretical ontology framework for barriers.
Fig 3: Survey Participant’s IT Experience
Fig 4: Roles of the Survey Participant’s
Fig 5: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with technical benefits
Fig 6: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with Operational benefits
Fig 7: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with strategic benefits
Fig 8: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with technical barriers
Fig 9: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with operational barriers
Fig 10: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with strategic barriers
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
7 Information School, The University of Sheffield
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
Today, computing has evolved from only hardware system to a model comprising of
services. These services are productised and supplied like traditional utilities such as
gas, electricity and telephone. In such type of model, how the services are delivered
or how the services are hosted doesn’t matter and users have access to services as per
their requirements. There are many computing models which have assured such kind
of utility computing idea such as Grid, Cluster and in recent times Cloud computing.
Cloud computing enables the businesses and end users to access the applications on-
demand from any place in the world. Therefore, world of computing is quickly
changing towards building software systems for masses and then publish them as a
service using network or internet, rather than to using individual computers to run
them (Buyyaa, et al., 2008). Nevertheless, the cloud computing has exceeded in
terms of acceptance and growth and it continues to grow across the industry.
According to study of (Pettey, 2010) , Cloud computing is at the top of strategic
technologies in 2011 which can change the IT industry.
Business problems are becoming more and more complex demanding more effort
and money. Every organization is trying to beat their competitors in customer
satisfaction by making sure that they provide much better facilities thorough their
services and products in as low price as possible. Most organizations achieve this by
using the software systems which specializes in performing all tasks and
responsibilities like planning, manufacturing, supplying product, etc. (Maguire, et al.,
2009). Organizations have to be very creative and proactive and technologically
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
8 Information School, The University of Sheffield
advanced in this market so that they can be ahead among their competitors. So a
number of software systems and tools have been developed which can help
organizations to compete with their peers. One of such systems is Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) systems.
In today’s age of web 2.0, companies have the potential to grow from beginning to a
very large scale at very high rate. But to achieve this growth rate, companies must
address crucial decisions of their businesses associated with delivery of service and
its infrastructure. The evolving cloud computing architecture is a platform to host
and deploy web-based services. This approach relieves the providers from the
accountability of provisioning the computing resources required to support the
services. Individual or companies who have domain expertise of market can run a
SaaS (Software-as-a-service) company without having to maintain IT infrastructure
(Hardware and Software). This approach reduces the complexity of software, costs,
accelerates time to reach the market and boost the access to services. Infrastructure
resources can be supplied to companies on-demand with the use of cloud computing.
Companies need to follow pay-as-you-go model for billing means they will be
paying for the resources user per unit of time (Rochwerger, et al., 2009).
Moving ERP systems to cloud offer the benefit of continuously running on present
software as the provider has the responsibility of keeping software up to date.
Although, cloud offers many benefits to ERP systems the barriers should not be
underestimated. The barriers include difficulty caused while moving from one cloud
provider to another or moving back to a self-hosted ERP solution (Oracle, 2011) .
The benefits that cloud provide attracts more companies to migrate their ERP
systems to the cloud however the risks in the cloud computing has put companies
into a dilemma. (Mohan, 2011).
Conversely, enterprises confront the restriction in using cloud computing for
mission-critical and high-performance software systems like ERP. Unfortunately, the
limits of cloud computing are frequently hidden by all the hysteria (Hoffman, 2010).
1.2 Problem Statement
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
9 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Although Cloud computing has its wide range of benefits, it lacks maturity when it
comes of adoption at Enterprise level. The advantages and benefits of migrating ERP
system to the cloud is often questioned by the barriers of adopting this model.
The complex technical architecture and non-transparent nature of cloud models has
resulted in increased focus on the security feature of the cloud computing. There has
been very little research done on other aspects of cloud which are of same
importance. Migrating ERP system on cloud is a big concern for enterprises among
the cloud providers as they try to enter this competitive market by marketing the
offering in cloud services. However organizations who wish to extract most from the
cloud services would require more unbiased and liberated studies through which all
the issues related to the cloud computing are addressed by the researchers (Khajeh-
Hosseini, et al., 2011) .
As researchers we should aim to provide appropriate information that would help
organization to take decision to whether or not move their ERP systems to the cloud.
1.3 Research Aim and Objectives
The main aim of this research is to identify the various benefits that an organization
can get when they move their ERP systems to cloud environment and also the
barriers that come across while moving ERP systems to the cloud. The scope of this
research is on the organizations which already have some ERP systems and IT
infrastructure in place and wish to migrate to cloud environment.
Primary Research Question
“What the benefits and barriers of migrating ERP systems to the Cloud?”
Following objectives would help in answering the questions, both primary and
secondary.
1. Understanding the concepts of ERP systems and cloud computing through
literature review.
2. Identifying potential benefits and barriers of cloud storage using the literature
review.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
10 Information School, The University of Sheffield
3. Framing a questionnaire based survey to identify the major benefits and
barriers in migrating ERP systems to the cloud.
4. To recommend based on findings of benefits and barriers whether it is
practical for organizations to move their ERP systems to the cloud.
1.4 Project Justification
The prime motive behind this research was to carry out a research that provides
enough information which will help organizations to decide whether or not move
their ERP systems to the cloud. Although there has been a lot of research done on
cloud computing and ERP systems, but very little research is done on migrating ERP
Systems on cloud. It is a very interesting but challenging research as it talks about
benefits and barriers on migrating ERP systems on cloud.
1.5 Research Methodology
An extensive literature review on ERP Systems, Cloud computing, features of Cloud
computing and ERP systems, benefits and barriers of migrating ERP systems to
cloud were used to develop the preliminary ontology framework. Academic Journals,
papers, reports, Industrial periodicals and other online sources were used for
conduction the literature review. Since cloud computing is a comparatively new
technology, very less research has been done in the field of migrating ERP systems
to the cloud. Hence, both direct literature and indirect literature were used to identify
benefits and barriers in migrating ERP Systems to the cloud.
Online questionnaire based survey was circulated among the IT professional across
the globe which helped in collecting data for the research. The questions were
designed to gather their perception towards benefits and barriers on migrating ERP
systems on cloud. The questions were divided into two sections, benefits and
barriers, which will help the participants to understand questions easily. The main
participants of this survey were technical analyst, project managers, tech leads,
business heads, and managers.
1.6 Structure of Dissertation
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
11 Information School, The University of Sheffield
The dissertation has been structured into following chapters:
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter has general introduction about the dissertation, problem statement,
research aims and objectives, project justification and research methodology.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
This chapter contains the literature review on the concepts of ERP systems and cloud
computing. The benefits and barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud are also
highlighted in this chapter.
Chapter 3: The Ontology Framework
This chapter discusses the classifications of the benefits and barriers of migrating
ERP systems to the cloud from the organizations perspective. This chapter includes
the theory based ontology framework
Chapter 4: Research Methodology
This chapter contains the general framework and the research methodology
implemented for this research. The questionnaire’s structure and design is discussed.
Data collection and data analysis method is also mentioned in this chapter.
Chapter 5: Findings
This chapter contains the findings of the survey. All the data is analysed in this
chapter. The scores for each benefit and barrier are calculated. Conclusion is drawn
on the basis of findings of this chapter.
Chapter 6: Conclusions and Recommendations
In this final chapter, the entire research is summarized along with a conclusion. It
also discusses the recommendations for the future.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
12 Information School, The University of Sheffield
2. An overview of ERP systems on the cloud
2.1 ERP systems
2.1.1 Definition of ERP Systems
There are many way in which ERP system can be defined:
1. According to (Dezdar & Sulaiman, 2009), An ERP system is a package of
business oriented software system which facilitates an enterprise to efficiently
manage the different resources like Finance and accounting, human resources,
supply chain, material management, etc. by offering a complete integrated
solution for the processing of information requested by enterprise, over a process
based view which is constant across the enterprise.
2. As per (Ehie & Madsen, 2005), an Enterprise resource planning is a unified
software package that extents the wide range of business in the enterprise which
also empowers the enterprise to gain complete vision of the business. The main
advantage of ERP system is that it ensures single database and application along
with an integrated interface throughout the whole enterprise.
2.1.2 Current ERP Deployment methods
On-premise or traditional ERP system implementation is always expensive and
challenging task for an organization. It also involves a huge risk as it consumes more
time. Traditional implementation of ERP requires deployment of new IT
infrastructure, buying new servers, buying hardware and software which makes it
always a costly thing. It also includes price of installation, cot of setup and
configuration for the purchased ERP package (Mangiuc, 2011).
Earlier ERP systems were run on mainframes, which were later replaced by standard
client-server ERP whose adaptations were based on company’s specifications. In
typical ERP systems, databases and business applications are run on back-end
servers and PC’s contains user interface.
Mostly, customer downloads the ERP package from the vendor website or vendor
provides some installation file in movable storage like CD, DVD, etc. The setup and
installation is carried out by the customer. The ERP package is typically installed
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
13 Information School, The University of Sheffield
throughout the customer’s network which comprises hardware and operating system
which is installed
Generally the ERP deployment method has following ways (Salleh, et al., 2012):
1. Traditional approach
According to (Mangiuc, 2011) in this approach, the ERP is deployed on personal
computer or laptop locally and is licenced on time or continuous basis. (Goel, et al.,
2011) Different ERP modules such as HRM, inventory, billing, feedback system are
implemented in an Adhoc way even without taking into consideration the general
objective of implementing ERP. Modules are, mostly, developed at not the same time
and also there is no communication or integration between these modules. Service
architecture concept is completely absent in this type of implementations.
2. On-campus or On-premise implementations
This approach is the current trend wherein in-house infrastructure is used for
implementing ERP and there is no dependency on outside vendors or suppliers.
(Goel, et al., 2011).
3. SaaS or On Demand
In this approach, the ERP is neither licences nor owned by the user. Here, software is
delivered as a service to the user where user pays the subscription fees. The service is
accessible from any computer having browser and internet connection. (Mangiuc,
2011).
4. Hosted services or Managed Services
In this approach, the ERP applications are licenced and then hosted by third-party.
There may be a separate instance or hardware or an isolated virtual machine for the
deployment of application on hardware which is mutual to more than one company
(Mangiuc, 2011). As per studied by (Goel, et al., 2011), additionally, the host looks
after implementation of virtualisation environment, server side scripting and tools,
storage systems and networking architecture. This approach has advantage of less
hardware cost for the organization whereas data storage systems and applications are
still managed and run within the premise of the organization. Even though this
approach takes some benefits of universal computing and Service-Oriented
architecture, there are still bottle necks present.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
14 Information School, The University of Sheffield
5. Pre-configured
In this approach, the software which is licenced is preconfigured and preinstalled on
computer. Pre-configuration might be according to specification of industry and
includes workflow templates and definitions (Mangiuc, 2011). .
2.1.3 Disadvantages of installing ERP systems on local server
1. In some cases, the customer will but the licence of the software which will allow
him to install the software on a computer and use it for certain no. of users.
Although, software can be used for an indefinite period, but it can be used only
on single machine (Mangiuc, 2011) .
2. Since ERP packages are installed across the customer’s network it has to face
challenge in terms of hardware configuration and be able to operate in any
environment with any pool of parameters. Achieving this target is extremely
expensive for the development team (Mangiuc, 2011).
3. One major disadvantage is “cross-platform” support for the ERP. It has to
facilitate support on more than one operating system. For a company who intends
to get a substantial share of market for their product has to develop ERP
packages for each of the major operating systems (Mangiuc, 2011).
4. Even for the most flawless ERP packages, which usually go through full testing
and provide proper documentation, the network team had to take the most
important risks of installing and updating the software (Mangiuc, 2011)
5. In this approach, the company has to purchase extra hardware, more internet
bandwidth, software licences, need to pay for maintenance and upgrades and also
needs specialized IT team (Bajenaru, 2010).
6. This approach is very costly affair as there are lot of cost components associated
with it like the cost of licencing of software, support, maintenance, upgrade of
software, server and database cost, application server, implementation, internal
support and training (Coupa, 2011).
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
15 Information School, The University of Sheffield
2.2 Cloud computing
2.2.1 Emergence of Cloud computing
The term “Cloud Computing”, which is relatively new, has been built on long years
of research in distributed and utility computing, virtualisation and lately networking,
web 2.0 and software as services. It involves a SOA i.e. Service Oriented
Architecture, decreased overhead of IT infrastructure for the user, greater flexibility,
less cost of ownership, services on-demand (Vouk, 2008). At a quick glance, clouds
seem to be grouping of Clusters and Grids but it is not. Clouds are undoubtedly
generation next data centers in which “nodes” are virtualised over hypervisor
technologies like Virtual Machines, delivered on-demand as a personal resource or
collection, to adhere a definite SLA i.e. Service Level Agreement, which is formed
through a discussion and is accessible as a web service with use of Web 2.0
(Rajkumar Buyya, 2008).
Technologies behind cloud computing:
1. Virtualization
Virtualization provides flexibility and scalability in computing platform by
partitioning hardware and thus form the base of cloud computing. Concept of virtual
machines, such as VMware, offer on-demand virtualized IT infrastructure. The
virtual networking concepts such as VPN provide support access to cloud computing
resources along with networking environment which is customized as per their needs
(Wang, et al., 2010).
2. Transposition of service and work flow
A group of service templates is offered by Cloud computing on demand which may
well be comprised by services within the cloud. Hence, cloud computing must be
able to transport services from more than one and different types of sources to shape
into a service flow or a work flow dynamically and transparently for the users
(Wang, et al., 2010).
3. Service-oriented architecture and Web-service
Cloud services are generally exposed in the form of Web services. The grouping and
transportation within the cloud can be managed using SOA or service-oriented
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
16 Information School, The University of Sheffield
architecture. These set of cloud computing services can be further used in
environment based on SOA application, hence enabling these services on numerous
distributed platforms and also on internet (Wang, et al., 2010).
4. Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is evolving technology which combines the inventive tendency of the use of
WWW or World Wide Web and web design with an objective of enhancing
creativity, sharing of information, association and functionality of the web. Web 2.0
is mainly created with the idea of improving interactivity and interconnectivity of the
web sites or web applications. Web applications, these days, are made with the
motive of allowing users to access the World Wide Web effortlessly and
competently. Cloud computing services are actually the web applications which
provide desired computing environment and services on-demand (Wang, et al.,
2010).
5. Network based and Distributed storage system
A network based storage system backed by virtualised data centers or distributed
storage provider tenders storage capacity to the users which can be leased. This data
storage can be combined, migrated and managed clearly to the users in almost all
possible data formats. Cloud computing should also be able to foresee a distributed
storage system which can provide sources of data in a semantic manner. Logical
names of data sources must be used instead of physical names to find data sources
(Wang, et al., 2010).
2.2.2 Difference between Stand-alone, Client-server and Cloud Architecture
According to (NORDOFF, 2010)
Stand-Alone Client-Server Cloud Architecture
In this architecture, the all
the resources such as user-
interface, business logic,
and the database are
entirely present in a single
end-users computer.
In client-server model, all
the components are
present in different
machines.
Cloud computing is,
basically, an idea of old-
style solution where the
servers are hosted.
This is a solitary execution This is logical partition of Cloud architecture is
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
17 Information School, The University of Sheffield
environment all the modules, services
and resources.
hosting concept.
Here single machine is
used for execution and
storing.
Here, user interfaces are
executed locally called as
“Clients” and business
logic and data stores are
executed in remote
machines called as
“Servers”
Here, as many machines
and servers can be used as
this is an hosting
environment and not
execution environment.
Table 1: Difference between Stand-alone, Client-server and Cloud
Architecture
2.3 ERP and Cloud computing
2.3.1 Introduction
According to the study of (Saini, et al., 2011), Enterprise Resource Applications can
use Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which is technically known as hosted or on-
demand applications which will turn out to be very useful for it. SaaS is capable of
adaptation to implement ERP systems if moulded correctly. As and how computing
is becoming more widespread in the enterprises, it is becoming difficult to manage
the complete infrastructure of distinct information architecture and distributed data
storage. This has made computing a costlier component for an enterprise. Cloud
computing has potential to reduce the costs of computing and delivering all the
existing functionality of IT services. As per, (Marston, et al., 2011) ERP system
based on web can be the next step for ERP implementation. According to (Raihana,
2012) ERP system deployed on cloud is termed as “Cloud ERP”. Since most of the
cloud environment are built with the use of virtualisation technology and load
balancing concepts, it allows ERP systems to be deployed through numerous servers
and database storage systems. This type of approach is considered as a revolutionary
method to deploy an ERP system. As stated by (Marston, et al., 2011), Cloud
computing, as an inventive distributed computing, can provide the dynamic buffering
of resources, virtualisation techniques and very advanced enterprise data center.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
18 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Cloud computing can be a very cheap alternative to buying and maintaining IT
infrastructure in-house. Further, cloud computing has potential to remove many
issues related to support as there will be no physical IT infrastructure to support and
maintain.
As per the study of (Marston, et al., 2011), Cloud computing has a deep influence on
the whole IT industry as a new modelling paradigm for business. If properly
integrated into all areas of business applications, it will give higher return on
investment. High performance ICT services can be made accessible to enterprises at
a very lower cost with the help of cloud computing. Cloud computing is conducive to
both SMEs and large enterprises. As stated by (Wei & Blake, 2010), using cloud
computing enterprises can develop huge software system by bringing together basic
services in a dynamic way. According to (Mvelase, et al., 2011), one of the main
advantages of using cloud computing is to make enterprise better equipped to
respond and react to unexpected and unpredicted changes, or to add new services and
functionality to the ERP system. Enterprise can gain competitive advantage and
production with the development in data storage, processing power and technology
obtainable by cloud computing which also allows inventions that were not
conceivable before. Cloud computing will provide the agility and controlling power
that is not possible with traditional approach. It will also allow enterprises to get
connected digitally with their customers and associates and provides new business
opportunities as well as competitive advantage.
There is no doubt that using cloud computing for ERP system is a revolutionary
technology that will continue to unleash new inventions and bring about new
effectiveness and benefits to business. It eliminates infrastructure and initial capital
expense as an obstacle to enter and enables start-ups to gauge up quickly and
economically (Hofmann, 2010).
2.4 Green IT and Cloud Computing
With the emergence of cloud computing, the ownership-based approach has been
changed to subscription-based approach which provides access to on-demand
services and scalable infrastructure. In addition, clouds also provide vast amount of
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
19 Information School, The University of Sheffield
computing power to the organisations which generate huge amount of data almost
every day demanding lots of processing power (Moreno & Xu , 2011) and (Buyya &
Garg, 2011). Clouds are generally comprised of data-centers which are designed to
provide elasticity and scalability desired by the customers and clouds also require a
lot of power of day-to-day operations (Buyya & Garg, 2011). Hence, for clouds, the
cost of energy is a substantial operating component and up-front expense. According
to , (Moreno & Xu , 2011), the concept of Green IT concentrates on the design,
development and management of computing resources and infrastructure with an
objective of having effective processes and suitable mechanisms to reduce resource
wastage and also bearing in mind the environmental consequences of its usage and
disposal. It was named as “Green IT” as its main aim was to minimize the damaging
impacts of IT infrastructure on the environment while using the computing resources.
It main objective is to strike a proper balance between quality levels of service and
its reducing impact on environment and to end up in computing environment which
is sustainable and eco-friendly. According to the study of (Moreno & Xu , 2011),
cloud computing has the capability of making traditional datacenters much more
energy efficient with the use of technologies like workload consolidation and
resource virtualization. As (Buyya & Garg, 2011) explains web applications running
on traditional datacenters are often capable of handling irregular peak loads which
can lead to low utilization of resources and energy wastage. On the other hand,
Cloud datacenter can minimize the use the technique of server consolidation wherein
one physical host is shared by multiple workloads and the servers which are not
being used can be turned off. This type of design is referred to as “Green Cloud”. As
explained by (Bouvry, et al., 2010) , the “GreenCloud” presents the users in depth
fine-grained modelling of energy that is used up by the elements of the datacenter
like servers, links and switches. Thus, “GreenCloud” can be considered as a step
forward for analysing, identifying and implementing complete saving of energy in a
system to achieve actually “Green IT” or Green computing services (Berl, et al.,
2010).
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
20 Information School, The University of Sheffield
2.5 Benefits of migrating ERP system to the cloud
o Lower costs
On premise deployment of ERP contains the cost of setting up an infrastructure i.e.
hardware cost and software cost, cost of implementation of ERP, the cost of
knowledge and resource (Makkar & Bist, 2012). Using cloud computing to
implement ERP systems, companies can minimize these costs (Shukla, et al., 2012).
(Makkar & Bist, 2012) Also no separate resources are required for deployment of the
ERP system. Cost of maintenance is also low as, mostly, the vendor offer technical
support at minimal cost (Raihana, 2012) (Saini, et al., 2011).
o Less runtime and responding time
Cloud computing makes it very easy for ERP systems that make use of cloud
computing for performing the batch jobs. For e.g. “1000 servers to accomplish a task
in 1/1000 that a single server would require” (Shukla, et al., 2012)
o Minimal implementation time
When compared to on-premise ERP implementation, which takes several months to
implement, implementing ERP on cloud takes a few or few days (Makkar & Bist,
2012).
o Less dependence on internal IT team
According to (Makkar & Bist, 2012) , (Raihana, 2012) Since the host provider
manages the infrastructure and network, ERP systems deployed on cloud requires
less technical resources when compared to on-premise ERP installation which
reduces the organizations burden.
o Easy to use
Since ERP system on cloud will be delivered as web site or web application, it makes
it very easy to use. This factor helps in user acceptance and system is used for which
is meant for (Makkar & Bist, 2012).
o Advanced Functionality
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
21 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Sometimes, ERP system bought or implemented by a company needs to be added
some additional functionalities which are missing in it. Hence, it adds to the extra
cost which is on the company. When ERP system implemented on cloud, it enables
company to use the third vendor software to accomplish their business needs and
more advanced functionality (Makkar & Bist, 2012).
o Mobile computing
According to (Makkar & Bist, 2012) and (Raihana, 2012) Since the prime computing
platform is located in cloud, the facility of mobile computing and mobile support is
very easy. This allows access to the system residing in the cloud to be accessible
from any device via internet.
o Interoperability
When ERP system is implemented on cloud, it uses Service Oriented Architecture
(SOA) for integration. This makes it easier to achieve interoperability with other
vendors whose systems are also residing on the cloud (Makkar & Bist, 2012).
o Scalability and Flexibility
According to (Makkar & Bist, 2012) and (Raihana, 2012), the expansion and
contraction of the on-premise ERP is a big challenge. In order for expansion or to
manage the new process load requirements, company needs to buy new computing
resources and it also requires to redesign the working of the system. On the other
side, cloud computing makes it easier to expand as well as contract the resources of
the system as per the business requirements. It’s possible in cloud computing to get
extra computing resources to meet the peak load process at very nominal price.
Cloud computing allows the companies to have, virtually, infinite computing
resources. Also, company only pays for what computing resources they use.
o Fast recovery and restoring capabilities
For a company using an ERP system also means to have a backup and recovery
system in place. In case of any hardware failure, company doesn’t wait for the
hardware to be repaired to start working again as it will affect their business.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
22 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Restoring and restoring is much easier in cloud computing as it is taken care by the
service provide which helps in flexibility of business (Makkar & Bist, 2012).
o Ability to extent the user group
In cloud computing, ERP systems have the potentially much more reach to connect
clients and customers due to the presence of internet (Makkar & Bist, 2012).
o Computing as a utility
The advantages that cloud computing offers are that large number of software are
available, accessibility to enormous processing power, large amount of storage, and
power of effortless information sharing and processing. Only browser and internet is
required to access all this information anytime. This means computing resource can
be used as a commodity like gas, water and electricity and at a cheap cost (Saini, et
al., 2011) (Zhang , et al., 2010)
o Measured service
In cloud computing, it is very easy to keep watch on the usage of computing
resources. The use of computing resources can be optimized through automatic
allocation of resources, automatic load balancing process and measuring the use of
tools. This gives, both the cloud service provider and consumer whose ERP is
deployed on cloud, transparent view of service utilization (Savolainen, 2010).
o Centralised control
Instead of managing all the tasks from multiple locations or individual’s location,
cloud computing allows all the management from the centralised or single location.
All the troubleshooting tasks and modifications in ERP systems can be handled by
the cloud service provider which lightens the burden on organization of upgrades and
patches of ERP system which, otherwise, have to done by themselves for each and
every user (Bhardwaj, et al., 2010).
o Pay as per usage
Since the ERP systems on cloud are network or internet based, the users are free to
access the service from absolutely any geographical location with virtually any type
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
23 Information School, The University of Sheffield
of device having web browser and internet connection. Both the owner of ERP and
the ERP users can pay as per their usage. This allows both of them to calculate the
budget for the usage of ERP as per the needs of business (Bhardwaj, et al., 2010).
o Large scale computing power
Cloud is very large in terms of size and processing power. The cloud owned by
Google has more than a million servers running in it. Other big players like IBM,
Amazon, Yahoo, and Microsoft also have large number for application and storage
servers running in their cloud. Even for large enterprises there are lots servers
running in the clouds. Hence it proves that cloud computing has large potential for
ERP to provide a very high scale of computing power (Zhang , et al., 2010).
o High level of reliability
The fault tolerance used by cloud is multi-transcript. It also uses “computation node
isomorphism exchangeable”, and other methods to ensure that it provides highly
reliable services as compared to normal computer or local network (Zhang , et al.,
2010).
o Data protection
In cloud computing, organization can depend on cloud provider for safe and secured
data storage center for their ERP systems. Organizations do not need to worry about
the concerns related to data loss and virus in the network or system as this thing is
responsibility of the cloud provider (Zhang , et al., 2010).
o Parallel Batch processing
Cloud computing has a huge potential to perform tasks that processes a huge amount
of data and is very time consuming like data analytics and batch-processing. Cloud
computing’s new concept called as “Cost Associativity”, i.e. “the cost of using
hundred computers for a short period of time is equivalent to using a few computers
for a long period of time”, can help to perform multiple jobs simultaneously at a
same time if the ERP system allows sufficient data parallelism (Armbrust, et al.,
2009).
o Guarantee of good service by cloud provider
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
24 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Cloud computing environment assures a good service for the organizations for their
ERP systems. These services like performance of hardware for e.g. CPU speed,
bandwidth, and memory. The good service is assured by the Service level agreement
(SLA) which is made between the cloud provider and the organization whose ERP
system is hosted on cloud (Wang, et al., 2010).
o Autonomous Infrastructure system
Cloud computing is always promoted as an automatic infrastructure system which is
managed in a transparent way for the users. The hardware system, software system
and the data that is present inside the clouds can be reconfigured, arranged and
merged to give a “single” view of platform to the users and organizations which
indirectly simplify the look and feel of the ERP systems (Wang, et al., 2010).
2.6 Barriers of migrating ERP systems to Cloud
o Data protection
One of the major challenges of migrating ERP systems to the cloud is security.
Protecting the data of customers, trading secrets, confidential information, or
exclusive information is one of major need for the survival of organization and for
such organizations protection becomes a challenge as cloud service providers are not
able to do so (Hoffman, 2010).
o Data Control
In on-premise ERP, the data and system is protected by firewall and an enterprise
poses the control over data and system. But when ERP system are migrated to the
cloud, they have no other choice but to trust their cloud service provider for safety of
data and system as the providers have control (Hoffman, 2010).
o Interoperability
As cloud computing services flourishes, there will also be constant challenges for
ERP systems in portability, migration and interoperability of the data as well as the
system itself. Different cloud service providers speak different set of languages. All
the major cloud providers have their own unique and mostly exclusive, way of
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
25 Information School, The University of Sheffield
storing data. Scalable storage of data is not yet a product and there is very little
chance that it will be for a very long time because there is no easy generalised
solution for storing data in a distributed way (Hoffman, 2010).
o Lock-In
According to (Hoffman, 2010) and (Bamiah & Brohi, 2010) In an on-premise ERP,
Enterprises have control over their infrastructure and platforms at any point of time
but in Cloud-ERP model, they are locked-in to a cloud service provider and they
have no longer control over their IT infrastructure.
o Lack of SLA’s ( Service Level Agreements )
One more issue is the absence of well-defined and well-structured Service Level
Agreements (SLAs) by cloud service providers. Who is to blame if the cloud
provider is not able to provide quality service? Who will be responsible if there is
any loss of data in ERP systems? (Hoffman, 2010)
o Performance variability
The cloud computing is repeatedly hyped as a solution for enterprises who have huge
variations in computing infrastructure demands. The infrastructure needs of ERP
systems always keeps on changing as the ERP system itself keeps on changing. It
concludes that cloud environment is suitable for ERP system. But the variations in
performance of cloud variation are not as much familiar which acts as a barrier in
migrating ERP system to the cloud. For e.g. Stress test was conducted in Australia to
prove that Google, Microsoft and Amazon had performance variations and
availability issues because of excessive load. This also supported that debate that
Cloud providers are not able to give electricity-like performance yet (Hoffman,
2010).
o Latency and Network Restrictions
Organizations will be restricted by the speed of network till they are using the fibre-
optic cable. As and how the amount of data in ERP systems keeps increasing to large
volumes, data migration and transferring will always act as a blockage and will also
be an costly affair.. (Hoffman, 2010) “For example, University of California,
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
26 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Berkeley, computer scientists calculated the cost of shipping 10 Tbytes of data from
the Bay area to Amazon in Seattle. Given the average bandwidth, sending this data
would take 45 days and costs US$1000 in network transfer fees. In contrast, shipping
10 1-Tbyte disks overnight cost only $400. ” (Hoffman, 2010)
o Scalability issue in storage
Cloud computing isn’t only about adding a vast number of application and database
servers. There are some tasks in ERP systems which can’t be addressed by adding
servers or nodes; they involve different solutions related to data processing, memory
and data storage. Most ERP systems depend on constant transactions supported by
Relational Database Management Systems, which unluckily cannot be scaled in
cloud computing. The Cloud computing does not have storage which can be scaled
and also the support of API’s as advanced as SQL. (Hoffman, 2010)
o Suppressed Creativity and Innovation
Maybe the main limitation is that it can damage creativity and innovation. ERP is a
main aspect of competitive advantage for any organization if it is implemented
accurately. What if ERP converts into a commodity, i.e. the main foundation of cloud
model, it limits the organizations capability to be creative and innovate. (Hoffman,
2010)
o Malicious attacks from within
According to the study of (Bamiah & Brohi, 2010) , (Mangiuc, 2011) When ERP
systems are migrated to the cloud, the employees of the cloud provider has complete
access to the ERP system and its servers. Those employees can damage the ERP
system by launching the malicious attack or injecting a virus into the system. Same
employees can also steal the data from the ERP system. This threat can not only
damage the trust of the organizations towards the Cloud service providers, but also
makes organizations unsure of putting their ERP systems to the cloud.
o Loss or Leakage of data
Loss of data can take place due to failures in day-to-day operations and functioning
of the company, undependable data storage systems, and uneven usage of encryption
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
27 Information School, The University of Sheffield
keys for security. ERP systems cannot afford this loss of data as it contains the
crucial data which, if used in unethical ways, can cause a lot of damage to the
company. In case of ERP systems, the loss of data can damage the brand image and
reputation of both the cloud provider and the organizations using the cloud service.
Loss or damage to the knowledgeable property might have consequences in both
financial as well as competitive terms alongside damages top agreement and might
also give rise to legal consequences. (Bamiah & Brohi, 2010)
o Account/Service Hijacking
ERP systems are often secured by login credentials, which authenticate and authorize
the user, and provide access to the system for the valid users only. Attackers gaining
unauthorized access to control the account of the users with the help of the hacking
techniques such as phishing, exploiting the vulnerabilities of the software are
referred as “Account or Service Hijacking”. “For example if an attacker gains access
to users credentials, they can spy on their activities/transactions, manipulate their
data, return falsified information and redirect them to illegitimate sites.” The
reputation of the cloud provider can be damaged by attackers by attacking the user’s
account and instances of service. The crucial parts of cloud computing services and
its deployment can be accessed with the use of stolen credentials which can allow the
user to damage the integrity, confidentiality and availability of ERP systems
deployed and its data. This vulnerability can deter the organization from moving
their ERP systems to the cloud. (Bamiah & Brohi, 2010)
o Unfamiliar risk profile
Organizations, deploying their ERP systems to the cloud, should be aware of the
version of the software, security practises followed, the updates related to codes and
patches, and the attempts of the intrusion. While agreeing to move their ERP systems
to the cloud, all these features and the functionality about the cloud provider may be
very well presented but they should also know about the details of the internal
security measures, configuration toughening, auditing, logging and patching
organizations must be explained whereabouts of the ERP data stored an what are the
logging procedures. Though, there isn’t any clear solution that may relieve
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
28 Information School, The University of Sheffield
organizations from the threat caused by unknown risk profile (Bamiah & Brohi,
2010).
o Data Protection and Data Portability
Even though there is a legal contract signed between the organization and cloud
provider, what will organization do when the contract is terminated and the
organization doesn’t wish to use the cloud services anymore? The question arises,
what will happen to the sensitive data of organization, will it be deleted by the client
or will it be misused? Furthermore, what if the cloud provider isn’t willing to
continue his business? What will be the status of organizations services and data?
Another issue is whether the cloud provider gives the data to other cloud provider
and, if yes, can the other provider be trusted? All these questions may discourage
from migrating ERP system to the cloud. (Bamiah & Brohi, 2010).
o Dependency on Internet
Cloud computing is a technology which is dependent on internet where the user
needs to access the services via the web browser. This dependency will create a huge
shutdown of the cloud services when the internet is down or not available. This is
always create a huge loss for the organizations when their system and operations,
which are required to be running 24 hours like banking systems and health care
systems, shuts down. Also internet is all throughout the globe for e.g. in some
underdeveloped countries such as Africa, internet is not considered to be reliable
enough, so it would be difficult for organizations in these countries to use cloud
services for their ERP systems (Bamiah & Brohi, 2010).
2.7 Traditional ERP versus ERP on cloud
After studying benefits and barriers in the previous chapter following comparison
was developed which was also supported by (Mozammel-Bin-Motalab & Shohag,
2011) and (Makkar & Bist, 2012)
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
29 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Traditional ERP ERP on Cloud
Deployment model Done on local server Clouds or cloud server
Business flow definition ERP system development
team defines the business
flow.
Specific to business and
organization
Defined by both ERP
development team and
business organization.
Flow specific
Cost of implementation High cost Low cost
Current cost Comparatively high Low
Controlling power Can be controlled easily Since, ERP is in the cloud
it is comparatively tough
to control
Customization Not open for business
organizations
Open for business
organization
Cost of support Comparatively high Low
Integration Vendor dependent Vendor dependent but, it
can support centrally
many other business
organization.
Cost of licencing High Low
Updating and
modification
Costly affair Low cost
Internet dependency No Yes
Audit and trial Easy Complex
Version controlling Complex Easy
Table 2: Comparison between Traditional ERP and Cloud ERP
3. The Ontology Framework
3.1 What is Ontology?
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
30 Information School, The University of Sheffield
The classification of cloud computing domain, its modules and their associations i.e.
ontology is essential for research community in order to understand cloud
computing in a better way (Youseff & Da Silva, 2008). The strategy and organization
of this ontology was implemented from the risk ontology design implementation
risks by Peng and Nunes (2007).
3.2 The Ontology Framework for benefits
The first level of ontology framework for benefits consists of four major categories-
Strategic Benefits (SB), Operational Benefits (OB), and Technical Benefits (TB).
The second level of this ontology consists of the subcategories which are based on
the aspects of ERP and cloud computing affected by the benefits. The actual benefits
identified through the literature review have been mentioned in the third level of the
framework. All the benefits in the ontology framework have their source as literature
review done in chapter 2.5 of literature review.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
31 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Fig 1: Theoretical ontology framework for benefits.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
32 Information School, The University of Sheffield
3.3 The Ontology Framework for barriers
The first level of ontology framework for barriers consists of four major categories-
Strategic Barriers (SBR), Operational Barriers (OBR) and Technical Barriers (TB).
The second level of this ontology consists of the subcategories which are based on
the aspects of ERP and cloud computing affected by the barriers. The actual barriers
identified through the literature review have been mentioned in the third level
framework. All the benefits in the ontology framework have their source as literature
review done in chapter 2.6 of literature review.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
33 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Fig 2: Theoretical ontology framework for barriers.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
34 Information School, The University of Sheffield
3.4 Summary
This chapter recognized all the potential benefits and barriers in migrating ERP
systems to the cloud. The benefits and barriers were divided into three main
categories viz. Strategic, Operational and Technical on the basis of areas of industry
that they affect. These benefits and barriers were framed into a theoretical ontology
framework with a specific code for each benefit and barrier. These benefits and
barriers pointed out in this ontology would be useful for recommending the
organization whether it is feasible to deploy their ERP systems to the cloud.
4. Methodology
4.1 Introduction
The chapters prior to this have presented the concepts of Enterprise Resource
Planning, Cloud computing. The research revolves around identifying the benefits
and barriers in migrating ERP systems to the cloud, from the perspective of IT
professionals as they are the best ones to decide these factors. This first section of the
chapter elaborates the approach and methods used for data collection. The second
section of the chapter discusses about how the participants were identified, selected
and approached for the research. The final section of the chapter discusses the
techniques used for data analysis.
4.2 Research approach
Choosing a suitable research approach for the project helps in framing and
configuring the design of the research, considering the limits and constraints though
focusing on the goals and research objective (Easterby-Smith, et al., 2008).
According to (Saunders, et al., 2012), there are two major methods for research –
quantitative and qualitative. One technique to differentiate between quantitative and
qualitative research is to decide amid numeric data such as numbers and non-numeric
data such as images, words, etc. (Saunders et al., 2009d) have identified research
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
35 Information School, The University of Sheffield
approaches as Deductive and Inductive. Deductive research is scientific approach
which is controlled by hypothesis where hypothesis and theory developed is analysed
and tested using suitable strategies. In Inductive method, data analysis is used to
develop hypothesis and theory. Mostly deductive research approach uses quantitative
method for data collection and inductive approach uses qualitative method for
collection of data.
a) Quantitative approach using Deductive method
Quantitative approach is generally linked with deductive method wherein the main
focus in the use of data to test the theory. In this method, statistical techniques are
used to examine the relations between the variables by measuring in numeric terms.
Properly structured and designed questionnaires or surveys are the best ways for data
collection (Saunders, et al., 2012).
b) Qualitative approach using Inductive method
In this approach, data is given prime importance as it is used to develop hypothesis
and theory and therefore it requires further subjective data which can be put to severe
assessment involving the attitude, behaviour and opinion. Therefor for qualitative
approach, personal interviews and group discussions are the best method to collect
data (Kothari, 2004).
c) Mixed methodologies
There is one more method called as “mixed methodologies” which combines both
the inductive approach and deductive approach. Although this method is beneficial in
using the strength of both Inductive and Deductive it is not recommended to use this
approach if there is restriction in using time and resources (Saunders, 2009d).
For this research, deductive approach using questionnaires was most favourable and
hence was adopted. Since there is not a lot of research carried out in this topic and
also the lack of expert knowledge in this subject, inductive approach was not
favourable (Saunders, et al., 2009b) . There was high amount of risk in using
qualitative approach for data collection as the research topic is still in developing
stage.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
36 Information School, The University of Sheffield
4.3 Research Method
The main aim of this research is to identify the benefits and barriers in migrating
ERP systems to the cloud. Therefore, a lot of research was done to create an ontology
form both the primary and secondary sources of literature. Although there is lot of
research done on ERP systems and Cloud computing individually, there is not a lot
of research carried out on ERP systems on cloud. Also, cloud computing being a
very new technology it isn’t enough to depend only on academic literature for the
research. Therefore, a quantitative approach was adopted for research to identify the
major benefits and barriers in migrating ERP system to the cloud.
To understand the overall perception on migrating ERP system to the cloud, a
questionnaire based survey was conducted among IT professionals across the globe.
These questionnaires were based on the benefits and barriers that were identified
through the literature review. As the main aim of the research is to get the general
perception or opinion related to benefits and barriers of migrating ERP system to the
cloud which were based on literature review, the most appropriate method identified
for data collection was a questionnaire based survey. (Saunders, et al., 2012), also,
recommends the use of questionnaires based survey for data collection which is
opinion based.
4.3.1 Research design
Following are the various stages of the research design and also their outcomes:
4.3.1.1 Research Orientation
Extensive study was conducted on ERP Systems and Cloud computing which was
the base of formulating research question and objectives. The first three sections of
literature review emphasised on concepts of ERP, Cloud computing, their features.
These sections helped in developing a platform for carrying out a rigorous research
and critical review on benefits and barriers of migrating ERP system to the cloud.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
37 Information School, The University of Sheffield
4.3.1.2 Research and critical review on benefits and barriers of migrating ERP
system to the cloud
The other sections (2.5, 2.6) focussed on identifying Benefits and barriers of
migrating ERP systems to the cloud based on the literature review done using all
academic sources. Since the cloud computing being a very new concept and a very
few research carried out on ERP systems and cloud computing together, both direct
and indirect sources were used in the topic of ERP an cloud to find out benefits and
barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud.
4.3.1.3 Developing a theoretical ontology framework
4.3.1.4 Collection of Data
According to (Saunders, et al., 2012), questionnaires works best when the questions
are standardised and for the research where researcher is confident that they will be
understood in the similar way by all the respondents. Hence, a survey based on
questionnaire will lead the researcher to conclusion to prioritize the benefits and
barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud.
4.3.1.5 Data Analysis
The aim of study was to collect perception for the benefits and barriers of migrating
ERP system to the cloud. This data would aid in more critical analysis of benefits
and barriers and also contribute for any further research in the field of Cloud ERP.
4.4 Participants Since Cloud computing is relatively new as compared to the other technologies and
ERP on cloud is yet to be implemented in full-fledge manner, getting a large number
of participants with working experience and practical knowledge in this field was
quite a challenge. These factors restricted the participant’s profile that will be
targeted. Hence, as mentioned earlier, the questionnaires which were designed on the
base of literature review were framed so as they would ask for an opinion rather that
and answer. The opinion would be based on their prior experience and knowledge
about ERP and cloud computing and also the questions were self-explanatory as well
which helped them to answer. Also, to identify the potential participants professional
social networking websites were used. Project manager and analysts who were
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
38 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Researcher’s ex-colleagues were the first line of contacts. They were sent invitation
to participate in the survey via email. This helped the researcher to distribute the
questionnaires to 100 participants through email. In addition to direct, indirect,
personal and professional contacts, some social networking sites like LinkedIn
(www.lnikedin.com) were used to reach the potential participants. Also the
researcher being a member of many ERP and cloud computing groups and forums on
LinkedIn and other sites, the link to the questionnaire was posted on these sites.
4.5 Questionnaire Design
The questionnaire comprised of 3 sections. Every section explained in detail the aims
and research objective and confirmed that the respondents and researcher had the
similar thought of the questions (Saunders, (2009). Since the data collected has to be
creditable and reliable, the questionnaire was designed carefully with complete focus
on the research objective.
The online questionnaire survey was build using Google docs. Invitation to
participate in the survey was sent through email to the participants along with the
link to the questionnaire. The link to the questionnaire was also posted on online
forums and professional social networking sites.
The questionnaires were divided into following three sections.
a) General questions
This section was aimed to gather the general details about respondents like Name,
email address, no. of years of work experience. Two questions in this section were
text based while one question was option based. This section was important as it
gave more authenticity to the response collected.
b) Benefits of migrating ERP system to the cloud
This section was aimed to collect opinion related to benefits of migrating ERP
systems to the cloud. The 2.4 section of chapter 2 resulted in these questions. All the
questions were choice based. All the questions in this section were option based
where respondent has to select any one option of 5.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
39 Information School, The University of Sheffield
c) Barriers of migrating ERP system to the cloud
This section was aimed to collect opinion related to barriers of migrating ERP
systems to the cloud. The 2.5 section of chapter 2 resulted in these questions. All the
questions in this section were option based where respondent has to select any one
option of 5.
4.5.1 Pilot testing
The online questionnaire was sent to 5 of the colleague along with the supervisor via
email to get their feedback on following aspects related to the questionnaire.
1. Questionnaire Design
2. Questionnaire usability
3. Questionnaire suitability
4. Time take to complete the survey
As per the feedback collected from the Pilot testing, the design of the questionnaire
was rated good by most of the participants. The usability of the questionnaire was
rated very-good by most of the participant. As far as suitability of the questionnaire
is concerned, it was rated well by most of the participants. Although most of the
questions, being self-explanatory, were easily understood by the respondents there
were few questions which needed to be reframed and rephrased for more
clarification. The average time taken to finish the survey was 2030 minutes
approximately by the respondents. As per the feedback, all the required changes were
done.
4.6 Data collection
The respondents provided the raw data through questionnaires which needs to be
converted to “Usable and presentable information” through cleaning, formatting,
encoding and combining the data. Microsoft Excel was used as spread-sheets to do
the quantitative analysis.
Responses from the questionnaires were collected in the Google spread-sheets
present in the Google docs. This result was imported to Microsoft Excel where they
were encoded on the basis of responses.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
40 Information School, The University of Sheffield
4.6.1 Questionnaires Supervision
The questionnaire survey was started in first week of August, 2011. The
questionnaires were sent to approximately 200 personal and professional contacts
across the globe which resulted in 120 responses. Thus the response rate was 60%.
4.7 Data Analysis (Vose, 2008) Spread-sheets like Microsoft excel are the easiest way to do the
quantitative analysis as they are very fast and easy to use. As the main aim of survey
based on questionnaire was the collecting quantitative data and analysing it,
Microsoft Excel 2010 was used for processing of data and analysis. The responses,
after encoding and consolidating, was processed with the use of statistics tools
present in Microsoft Excel.
4.7.1 Consolidation of Data
The variables from each questionnaire were copied in a different Microsoft Excel
2010 sheet to perform data consolidation and data analysis. The summary was also
calculated for the response collected using the Excel.
4.7.2 Tools and Techniques
Microsoft Excel 2010 facilitates the advanced mathematical functions and
calculations to be performed on data. This facility was used to perform statistical
functions on data. The data analysis add-in which is an additional utility provided by
Excel was enabled and used for statistical calculation like mean and standard
deviation.
Data analysis for the section 2 and 3 has been shown using graphical notations like
pie charts and bar graphs already provided by Excel 2010.
“Mean” is used to calculate the average score for each question. This was calculated
by calculating the mean score for each question by all the responses. “Standard
deviation” is used to show the deviation occurred from the mean value calculated
4.8 Summary In this chapter, the research strategy and research methodology has been discussed in
detail. The research approach adopted was Quantitative and Deductive to prioritize
each benefit and barrier based on the responses from the survey. The approach used
to identify the participants has also been mentioned in details. Google spread-sheet
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
41 Information School, The University of Sheffield
has been used to collect data from questionnaire based survey. Microsoft excel 2010
has been used to calculation and data analysis and to perform statistics functions on
encoded data.
5. Findings of the questionnaire survey
5.1 Survey Participant’s Demographics
In this chapter, the respondent profile is discussed based on the questions asked in
section one of the questionnaire. In this section, their company size and their total no.
of work experience is gathered. This section helps in authenticity and credibility of
the collected data.
5.2 Survey Participant’s Company Size
The graph below shows the no of respondents in the company size groups
Fig 3: Survey Participant’s IT Experience
8, 7%
21, 17%
91, 76%
Respondants Company Size
Small-sized
Medium-sized
Big Enterprise
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
42 Information School, The University of Sheffield
The graph below shows the total no. of respondents in the experience group
Fig 4: Roles of the Survey Participant’s
IT professional across the globe having wide range of experience participated in this
survey. Thus the view point of people from almost all the hierarchy of IT industry
was gathered during this survey. This will make sure that there would be less biasing
in the result. It will also help in generalizing the perception of IT professionals.
The following list of roles of the survey participants was approached.
1. Lead developer
2. Database administrator
3. System Analyst
4. Business Analyst
5. Delivery Manager
6. Deliver Head
7. Test Analyst
8. Technical Consultant
9. Project Manager
10. Project Leader
24, 20%
70, 58%
26, 22%
Experience in ERP/Cloud Computing
0 Years to 4 Years
4 to 8 Years
More tha 8 years
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
43 Information School, The University of Sheffield
5.3 Analysis of Benefits of migrating ERP systems to the cloud
In this section, the findings from the univariate and bivariate analysis of the benefits
of migrating ERP systems to the cloud surveyed in the questionnaire. Also, a detailed
discussion and interpretation of findings are done in relative to the literature review
done in previous chapters.
5.3.1 Benefits of migrating ERP systems to the cloud: Univariate analysis
Univariate analysis of benefits states the descriptive analysis of the benefits of
migrating ERP systems to the cloud examined. In order to present the analysis
frequency table is used. This will show how many respondents have agreed or
disagreed with the benefit and to what level. Of all the benefits that were identified
using the literature review, overall 20 benefits were used in the questionnaire survey.
5.3.1.1 Technical Benefits
From the literature review 7 technical benefits were found out. Table 3 summarizes
the findings of the questionnaires associated with these technical benefits
F=Frequency, N=Total no of responses.
Table 3: Frequency table for Technical benefits
The following graph illustrates the percentage of respondents that have agreed with
the benefits that found during the literature review. This comprises of respondents
who have chosen “Strongly Agree” and “Agree” together and others who have
chosen “Strongly Disagree” and “Disagree” together.
Code Technical Benefits N=120 Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
F % F % F % F % F %
TB1 Dynamic scalability 17 14.16 74 61.66 10 8.33 10 8.33 9 7.5
TB2 Authorization of users 17 14.16 66 55 16 13.3 14 11.66 7 5.83
TB3 Easy to deploy 18 15 84 70 3 2.5 10 8.33 5 4.16
TB4 Seamless Upgrades 21 17.5 74 61.66 9 7.5 10 8.33 6 6
TB5 Rapid recovery and restoration 16 13.33 83 69.16 8 6.66 6 5 7 5.83
TB6 Less software maintenance 19 15.83 74 61.66 9 7.5 9 7.5 9 7.5
TB7 Version control and upgrading 11 9.16 77 64.16 15 12.5 8 6.66 9 7.5
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
44 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Fig 5: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with technical benefits
As shown in the above graph (fig 5), most of the respondents agree to the benefits as
compared to people who disagree. Also the difference between percentage of people
that agree to people disagree is higher. This shows that most of the organizations do
agree that cloud computing has the capability to provide lot of technical benefits
when used for deploying ERP systems. This is also supported by (Bisong & Rahman,
2011) stating that although technology has its reasonable part of drawbacks, it also
has a lots of potential benefits which is turning a lot of doubters into supporters.
According to (Khajeh-Hosseini, et al., 2011) , technology start-ups are presently
taking advantage of cloud computing because of its advantages in reliability, cost-
effectiveness and scalability. Even the larger enterprises are now starting to show
attention towards cloud computing because of these guaranteed benefits. As stated by
(Khajeh-Hosseini, et al., 2010) cloud computing has generated a lot of interest in the
Information technology industry. As suggested by IDC firm which is a market
researcher and analyst company, cloud computing services market is $16 billion in
the year 2008 and is expected to rise to $42 billion per year by 2012. The technical
benefits are supported by (Zhang, et al., 2010), saying that technologies that are
mostly used by cloud computing like Virtualisation and pricing based on usage
already existed in the market. As an alternative, cloud computing influences these
prevailing technologies to meet the economic and technological requirements of
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
TB1 TB2 TB3 TB4 TB5 TB6 TB7
Agree
Disagree
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
45 Information School, The University of Sheffield
current demands of IT. Since, the charges of cloud computing providers are very less
and the advancement in IT removes the technical barriers like network bandwidth,
simulation and virtualisation, cloud computing has become the mainstream of IT
technology (Singh & Jangwal, 2012).
5.3.1.2 Operational Benefits
From the literature review 7 operational benefits were found out. Table 4 summarizes
the findings of the questionnaires associated with these Operational benefits.
Table 4: Frequency table for Operational benefits
Fig 6: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with Operational benefits
As shown in the graph above (fig 6), higher number of the respondents agrees to the
operational benefits as compared to respondents who disagree. Also, the difference
Code Operational Benefits N=120 Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
F % F % F % F % F %
OB1 Price Model 23 19.16 47 39 31 26 12 10 7 5.83
OB2 Low capital expenditure 25 20.83 66 55 13 11 7 5.83 9 7.5
OB3 Less burden on IT department 13 10.83 20 17 17 14 9 7.5 4 3.33
OB4 Easy to manage 22 18.33 70 58 14 12 7 5.83 7 5.83
OB5 no up-front commitment 17 14.16 81 68 10 8.3 9 7.5 3 2.5
OB6 No need of expertise 10 8.33 74 62 15 13 12 10 9 7.5
OB7 Unlimited storage 13 10.83 73 61 19 16 5 4.16 10 8.33
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
OB1 OB2 OB3 OB4 OB5 OB6 OB7
Agree
Disagree
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
46 Information School, The University of Sheffield
between the numbers of people that agree to the number of people who disagree
proves that most of the organization perceives that cloud computing has a lot of
operational benefits that will help them to reduce their expenses incurred by IT
infrastructure. As also stated by (Bisong & Rahman, 2011), that organisations look
upon to cloud computing as a tool to reduce cost and increase the profit. He also says
that most CIOs are under constant pressure to cut the capital assets, man power,
maintenance costs, and support costs; and cloud computing is a way to achieve all
this. According to (Zhang, et al., 2010) , various different perceptions exists for
cloud computing is that it is not new technology instead it is a new operations model
that combines group of technologies to manage business. As stated by (Abadi,
2009), one oft-cited advantage of cloud computing is its elasticity during changing
conditions. As per (Saini, et al., 2011), the SaaS-software design has repaired the
operational and financial advantages over others when compared to on-premise
models of software. The cost of operation is very less and the cost of subscription is
also decreased as the cloud service provider operates the ERP systems which have
the ability to provide services. Cloud computing saves a lot of money, reduces the
usage of IT resources and time spent from developing to implementing ERP systems.
Latest research points out that the use of SaaS of Cloud-ERP has increased and the
demand will keep on increasing and it is predicted by the researchers that SaaS will
overtake other traditional IT substitutes as a result of current crisis in economy and
will also help recover economies. The list of benefits for this model is increasing and
will go past costly effective software delivery causes, enabling enterprises to
renovate their business processes.
5.3.1.3 Strategic Benefits
From the literature review 6 strategic benefits were found out. Table 5 summarizes
the findings of the questionnaires associated with these strategic benefits.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
47 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Table 5: Frequency table for Strategic benefits
Fig 7: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with strategic benefits
The graph above (fig 7) shows that businesses are more and more accepting Cloud-
ERP model to strategize their businesses. As stated by (Saini, et al., 2011), with the
proper use of IT technologies, restructuring the business processes and reengineering
the workflows, a huge number of customers can be attained and existing customers
can be stopped refrained from leaving the business. With reducing IT burden,
enterprises can concentrate of core areas of its business. The optimization of process
based on cloud computing can accomplish all over the large-scale reconstruction of
the sector, and improve the complete IT values and competiveness. As per the study
of (Marston, et al., 2011) Cloud computing symbolizes a merging of two main
developments in information technology – a) efficiency of IT wherein the muscle of
modern day computers is used more effectively with the use of hardware and
Code Strategic Benefits N=120Strongly AgreeAgree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
F % F % F % F % F %
SB1 Dependable security 25 20.83 63 53 16 13 8 6.66 8 6.66
SB2 Strict policies 12 10 73 61 15 13 7 5.83 12 10
SB3 Mobility 10 8.33 76 63 17 14 10 8.33 7 5.83
SB4 Advanced functionality 15 12.5 77 64 13 11 6 5 9 7.5
SB5 Better usage of resources 15 12.5 87 73 9 7.5 5 4.16 4 3.33
SB6 Internet presence 9 7.5 81 68 14 12 9 7.5 7 5.83
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
SB1 SB2 SB3 SB4 SB5 SB6
Agree
Disagree
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
48 Information School, The University of Sheffield
software with high scalability b) business responsiveness, wherein information
technology can be used as an aggressive tool through quick deployment, parallel
batch processing, usage of compute-concentrated business analytics and interactive
applications which are mobile that reply in real time to the requirement of the user.
On the other hand, when the term business agility applies, cloud computing is not
only about cheaper computing, it is also regarding the businesses being capable of
using computational tools which can be deployed and scaled quickly, even as it
decreases the need for huge direct investments that portray enterprise information
technology setup today. As per the findings and according to (Marston, et al., 2011),
it is proven that CTOs and CIOs are proactively developing an complete “cloud
strategy” so as to determine a plan based on time about choosing which applications
to move to the cloud, and the timeframes linked with each one of them.
5.3.1.4 Discussion on findings and ranking of benefits
In the above sections, the results drawn from the questionnaire survey for the
benefits have been discussed and presented for each type of barrier. This section
provides a general discussion on the findings altogether for the barriers so far. The
mean method was used to summarize the responses about the benefits for migrating
ERP systems to the cloud.
Table 6: Mean and Standard deviation for benefits
Category Benefit Mean SD
TB1 Dynamic scalability 2.66 1.059
TB2 Authorization of users 2.6 1.051
TB3 Easy to deploy 2.83 0.924
TB4 Seamless Upgrades 2.78 0.993
TB5 Rapid recovery and restoration 2.83 0.938
TB6 Less software maintenance 2.95 0.845
TB7 Version control and upgrading 2.6 1.002
OB1 Price Model 2.58 1.086
OB2 Low capital expenditure 2.75 1.08
OB3 Less burden on IT department 2.46 1.152
OB4 Easy to manage 2.83 0.924
OB5 No up-front commitment 2.83 0.849
OB6 No need of expertise 2.53 1.032
OB7 Unlimited storage 2.61 1.018
SB1 Dependable security 2.74 1.068
SB2 Strict policies 2.56 1.068
SB3 Mobility 2.6 0.96
SB4 Advanced functionality 2.69 1.006
SB5 Better usage of resources 2.86 0.805
SB6 Internet presence 2.8 0.781
Technical Benefit
Operational
Benefits
Strategic Benefits
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
49 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Therefore, the means of benefits variables were calculated using by Microsoft Excel
2010, as presented in table above. The standard deviation for each benefit was also
shown in the above table to reflect the level to which the values of each benefit
differed from the mean.
In the table 7, all the benefits have been ranked by rearranging and prioritising each
benefit item on their respective means. It must be seen that 7 out of top 10 benefits
are non-technical i.e. Operational and Strategic. Therefore, it is clear that the
respondents identified that organisational and strategic benefits are more important
when compared to technical.
Table 7: Rankings of the benefits
As shown in the table, “Less burden on IT department” is perceived as the most
important benefit according to the respondents which mainly aims at saving costs
and resources for the company. A possible explanation to this finding is given by
(Raihana, 2012), SaaS vendor or cloud provider takes the responsibility for the
deployment and management of the IT infrastructure which includes application
servers, operating system, data storage system, datacenters, network accessibility,
Rank Benefit N=120 Mean Type
1 OB3 Less burden on IT department 2.95 Organisational
2 SB5 better usage of resources 2.86 Strategic
3 TB5 Rapid recovery and restoration 2.83 Technical
4 OB4 Easy to manage 2.83 Organisational
5 OB5 no up-front commitment 2.83 Organisational
6 TB3 Easy to deploy 2.83 Technical
7 SB6 Internet presence 2.8 Strategic
8 TB4 seamless upgrades 2.78 Technical
9 OB2 Low capital expenditure 2.75 Organisational
10 SB1 dependable security 2.74 Strategic
11 SB4 Advanced functionality 2.69 Strategic
12 TB1 Dynamic scalability 2.66 Technical
13 OB7 Unlimited storage 2.61 Organisational
14 TB4 Authorization of users 2.6 Technical
15 TB7 Version control and upgrading 2.6 Technical
16 SB3 Mobility 2.6 Strategic
17 OB1 Price Model 2.58 Organisational
18 SB2 Strict policies 2.56 Strategic
19 OB6 No need of expertise 2.53 Organisational
20 TB6 less software maintenance 2.46 Technical
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
50 Information School, The University of Sheffield
cooling and power and tasks/processes which includes patching and upgrading of
infrastructure, patching and upgrading of software, backup and restoration tasks that
are needed to manage and run the entire solution. This takes a lot of load of
organization of installation and operation of applications on the computer network. It
also eradicates the huge load of maintaining software; continuation of operation,
protection and support. The “better usage of resources” has been explained by
(Bhardwaj, et al., 2010) and (Bhaskar, et al., 2011) stating that cloud computing,
through its centralised computing model, allows the administration of all the IT
resources and tasks from single location. Tasks like load competency and maximum
usage of servers can be achieved from a single location. As explained by (Mangiuc,
2011), the online recovery and storage services offered by cloud computing are
faster. Due to higher competition providers are required to keep the prices low to
sustain profitability. ERP systems on cloud are very easy to control and manage
because the 24/7 support is provided by the most of the providers (Mangiuc, 2011).
Since cloud computing has the facility to provide the entire IT infrastructure and it’s
components as a service with the use of internet, organizations are not required to
buy or won the infrastructure or the computing resources which relieves them from
the ownership or commitment in terms of computing resources (Hofmann & Woods,
2010). Cloud computing takes out lot of effort and time required for deployment of
ERP systems as it is mainly carried out by the cloud providers (Makkar & Bist,
2012). Overall, it was quite possible that the technical benefits that were studied in
the survey might have been low-key due to lack of practical knowledge and
implementation experience
5.3.2 Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud: Univariate analysis
Univariate analysis of barriers expresses the descriptive analysis of the barriers of
migrating ERP systems to the cloud examined. In order to present the analysis
frequency table is used. This will show how many respondents have agreed or
disagreed with the barriers and to what level. Of all the barriers that were identified
using the literature review, overall 20 barriers were used in the questionnaire survey.
5.3.2.1 Technical Barriers
From the literature review and the ontology framework discussed in the above
chapters only 3 technical barriers were found out and used in the survey. The lesser
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
51 Information School, The University of Sheffield
no. of technical barriers suggests that technically it is quite possible to implement
ERP systems to the cloud.
Table 8: Frequency table for technical barriers
According to (Saini, et al., 2011), limited source of energy and limited bandwidth are
one of the main reasons organisations are sceptical to move to the cloud. According
to (Dillon, et al., 2010), each and every cloud providers and application have their
own way in which they interact with loud and within themselves. This strictly
hampers the development of a single system of cloud and organizations are tied up to
their service provider. It becomes difficult for organisations to choose from the
providers. According to (Feuerlicht, et al., 2011), one of the important cause of
misperception is the absence of accuracy in the explanation of cloud computing that
generally covers a range of numerous kinds of services, extending from easy data
storage services to very complex multitenant SaaS applications.
Code Technical Barriers N=120 Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
F % F % F % F % F %
TBR1 no simple solution for data storage 18 15 78 65 13 10.83 4 3.33 7 5.83
TBR2 failures of mechanics 18 15 81 67.5 7 5.83 6 5 8 6.66
TBR3 network limits 20 16.67 82 68.33 6 5 6 5 6 5
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
52 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Fig 8: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with technical barriers
5.3.2.2 Operational Barriers
From the literature review and the ontology framework discussed in the above
chapters only 7 operational barriers were found out and used in the survey. It is quite
clear from the numbers that organizations see that there are lot of operational barriers
in moving ERP systems to the cloud
Table 9: Frequency table for operational barriers
According to cloud computing promotes serious concerns particularly related to
security level. Completely relying on cloud provider for own data and task execution
which might reside in different country having different governing surroundings is a
barrier for a company to move their ERP systems to the cloud. Despite being a
strong need for in-detail discussion of operational issues in cloud computing, the
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
TBR1 TBR2 TBR3
Agree
Disagree
Code Operational Barriers N=120 Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
F % F % F % F % F %
OBR1 Control over infrastructure 10 8.33 87 72.5 9 7.5 8 6.67 6 5
OBR2 Lack of SLA 16 13.33 82 68.33 10 8.33 4 3.33 8 6.66
OBR3 Security Issues 19 15.83 74 61.67 9 7.5 9 7.5 9 7.5
OBR4 Data handling practices 11 9.16 80 66.67 13 10.83 8 6.66 8 6.66
OBR5 Trust on cloud provider 15 12.5 84 70 10 8.33 7 5.83 4 3.33
OBR6 Internet dependency 12 10 83 69.17 12 10 6 5 7 5.83
OBR7 level of Quality of Service 13 10.83 83 69.17 10 8.33 6 5 8 6.66
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
53 Information School, The University of Sheffield
present fear of organisation is mainly focused mainly on confidentiality,safety and
privacy of data and examine mostly organisational ways to handle this barriers.
Fig 9: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with operational barriers
5.3.2.3 Strategic Barriers
From the literature review and the ontology framework discussed in the above
chapters only 10 strategic barriers were found out and used in the survey. This group
forms the most number of barriers indicating that moving to the cloud computing is
more a tactical challenge than technical.
Table 10: Frequency table for strategic barriers
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
OBR1 OBR2 OBR3 OBR4 OBR5 OBR6 OBR7
Series 1
Series 2
Code Strategic Barriers N=120 Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
F % F % F % F % F %
SBR1 Customer risk 16 13.33 78 65 13 10.83 7 5.83 6 5
SBR2 Damage through insider 18 15 85 70.83 7 5.833 7 5.83 3 2.5
SBR3 laws of jurisdiction 25 20.83 52 43.33 17 14.17 13 10.83 13 10.83
SBR4 law enforcement 14 11.67 80 66.67 15 12.5 9 7.5 2 1.66
SBR5 Control of data 27 22.5 69 57.5 11 9.16 8 6.66 5 4.16
SBR6 Audibility 8 6.66 80 66.67 11 9.16 15 12.5 6 5
SBR7 Interoperability 9 7.5 81 67.5 14 11.67 9 7.5 7 5.83
SBR8 performance variation in cloud 16 13.33 77 64.17 11 9.16 9 7.5 7 5.83
SBR9 lack of innovation 15 12.5 79 65.83 15 12.5 6 5 5 4.16
SBR10 migration 21 17.5 78 65 10 8.33 7 5.83 4 3.33
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
54 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Fig 10: Comparison of people agreeing and not-agreeing with strategic barriers
5.3.2.4 Discussion on findings and ranking of barriers
In the above sections, the results drawn from the questionnaire survey for the
benefits have been discussed and presented for each type of barrier. This section
provides a general discussion on the findings altogether for the barriers so far. The
mean method was used to summarize the responses about the benefits for migrating
ERP systems to the cloud.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
SBR1 SBR2 SBR3 SBR4 SBR5 SBR6 SBR7 SBR8 SBR9 SBR10
Series 1
Series 2
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
55 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Table 11: Mean and standard deviation for barriers
Therefore, the means of barriers variables were calculated using by Microsoft Excel
2010, as presented in table above. The standard deviation for each barrier was also
shown in the above table to reflect the level to which the values of each benefit
differed from the mean.
In the table below, all the barriers have been ranked by rearranging and prioritising
each barrier item on their respective means.
Category Barriers Mean Standard Deviation
TBR1 No simple solution for data storage 2.8 0.936
TBR2 Failures of mechanics 2.791 0.982
TBR3 Network limits 2.866 0.921
OBR1 Control over infrastructure 2.725 0.894
OBR2 Lack of SLA 2.783 0.95
OBR3 Security issues 2.708 1.059
OBR4 Data handling practices 2.65 0.971
OBR5 Trust on cloud provider 2.825 0.843
OBR6 Internet dependency 2.725 0.921
OBR7 level of QoS 2.725 0.957
SBR1 Customer risk 2.758 0.93
SBR2 Damage through insider 2.9 0.81
SBR3 Laws of jurisdiction 2.525 1.238
SBR4 law enforcement 2.791 0.805
SBR5 Control of data 2.616 1.018
SBR6 Audibility 2.575 0.963
SBR7 Interoperability 2.633 0.939
SBR8 Performance variation in cloud 2.716 0.984
SBR9 Lack of innovation 2.775 0.879
SBR10 Migration 2.875 0.88
Strategic
Barriers
Technical Barrier
Operational
Barriers
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
56 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Table 12: Ranking of barriers
As per the rankings, security from within the organization or cloud provider is rated
as the most important barrier. This may be because of human intervention which is
difficult to avoid when compared to technological barrier (Marston, et al., 2011). As
also supported by (Mangiuc, 2011), the destruction that is caused due to mischievous
insider is a lot far bigger. The architectures of the clouds require specific roles which
are very dangerous. Roles such as system administrator are very sensitive for
security. As per the study of (Mohan, 2011),It is difficult for organisations to move
to other cloud provider or even move back to the in0house environment as there
aren’t many tools and applications available for portability. The cloud computing is
all dependent on internet connectivity which might restrict the speed and
performance for the ERP depending upon the network and bandwidth. This is also
supported by (Saeed, et al., 2011), stating that the slow speed of internet connection
and down time of cloud can affect the performance and might cause losses. Since the
data and system reside in the remote machine located at the cloud provider,
organisations have to trust their cloud provider for their data and system. This is also
supported by (Mangiuc, 2011) that organisations have to agree to the control of the
Rank Barrier Mean
1 SBR2 Damage through insider 2.9
2 SBR10 Migration 2.875
3 TBR3 Network limits 2.866
4 OBR5 Trust on cloud provider 2.825
5 TBR1 No simple solution for data storage 2.8
6 TBR2 Failures of mechanics 2.791
7 SBR4 Law enforcement 2.791
8 NBR2 Lack of SLA 2.783
9 OBR2 Lack of innovation 2.775
10 SBR1 Customer risk 2.758
11 OBR7 Level of QoS 2.725
12 OBR6 Internet dependency 2.725
13 OBR1 Control over infrastructure 2.725
14 SBR8 Performance variation in cloud 2.716
15 OBR3 Security issues 2.708
16 OBR4 Data handling practices 2.65
17 SBR7 Interoperability 2.633
18 SBR5 Control of data 2.616
19 SBR6 Audibility 2.575
20 SBR3 Laws of jurisdiction 2.525
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
57 Information School, The University of Sheffield
service provider on a lot of areas and issues of business areas. Since, there is no easy
and general solution for data storage and also every cloud provider has a different
way of storing data there may be some issues with acceptance of cloud computing as
a one point solution for deploying which is also supported by (Walloschek &
Stocker, 2011). The failure of isolation i.e. the risks which covers the mechanisms
failure storage separation, memory, network routing is also a barrier (Mangiuc,
2011). Overall, the barriers are more concentrated towards the operations and
security related to the cloud computing which is the main reason for organisations
hesitating in moving to the cloud.
5.4 Summary
This chapter discussed about the findings of the questionnaire survey conducted
among the IT professionals. The profile of the respondents helped in maintaining the
credibility and authenticity in terms of their total IT experience and knowledge and
specifically in the areas of ERP and Cloud computing. This was followed by the
findings related to benefits and barriers of moving ERP systems to the cloud.
6. Conclusions and Recommendations In this chapter, the conclusions and recommendations that can be taken out from this
research are discussed. This chapter also discusses the scope, limitations and
suggestions for the organisations and cloud service providers. This will also
recommend an organisation whether or not it is feasible for them to migrate their
ERP systems to cloud.
6.1 Conclusions
The benefits provided by the adoption of cloud computing for ERP systems are often
doubted by the barriers that organisations face in migrating ERP systems to the
cloud. As and how organisations are considering or already having migrated their
ERP systems to the cloud, new barriers are revealed. Also, this further suspects the
ability of the organizations to do a proactive study of practicality and feasibility of
migrating their ERP systems to the cloud. Although, the cloud computing provides
many benefits for ERP systems like scalability, less cost of infrastructure,
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
58 Information School, The University of Sheffield
organisations must not ignore the barriers or issues before making their decision to
adopt cloud computing.
The prime objective of this research was to find, rank the benefits and barriers of
migrating ERP system to the cloud. The study aimed at providing user and
organisations some dependable information which can help them make decision of
whether or not to adopt cloud for their ERP systems. An in-depth literature review
was carried out on ERP, cloud computing concepts and Enterprise Cloud computing.
The study also included the benefits and barriers for adopting cloud environment for
ERP systems. The possible deployment models for adopting cloud computing for
ERP systems were also discussed. These theories laid the basis for moving ahead on
this research towards the benefits and barriers of cloud computing adoption for ERP
systems. The various benefits and barriers were recognized from both direct and
indirect literature sources and were grouped based on their fields of existence and
influence. Overall, 20 benefits and 20 barriers were found out which were further
organised into three major categories. In this categorization, the benefits and barriers
amongst technical, operational and strategic were revealed. This assisted in
developing a ontology framework for benefit and barrier which was applied in
completing the objectives of the research.
The questionnaire survey was constructed based on the ontology framework and
literature review. A comprehensive assessment was carried out from the perspective
of IT professionals across the areas of expertise in the field of ERP and cloud
computing. People from various levels and positions ranging from developers to
delivery managers were aimed for this survey.
The findings of the questionnaire survey added to the adoption of cloud computing
for ERP systems for organisations. It also encapsulated the perception of IT
professionals on the benefits and barriers of cloud computing and ERP systems that
can take advantage of cloud computing. The questions on observed barriers exposed
complexity, privacy and security and integration with legacy applications as the
highest barriers. These findings can further create a roadmap for further research into
these particular areas of adoption of cloud computing for ERP systems. As a part of
data analysis, mean and standard deviation for each benefit and barrier were carried
out as a part of bivariate analysis. The mean was calculated on the basis of the
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
59 Information School, The University of Sheffield
frequency of each response from the respondents. Then on the base of their mean
value, the benefits and barriers were ranked. During this, less burden on IT
department, better usage of resources, rapid recovery and restoration capabilities
were rated as top benefits by the respondents. Similarly, damage through malicious
insider, migration to different cloud vendors, and network limits were ranked as top
barriers by the respondents.
Overall the findings of the survey showed that cloud computing adoption has more
operational and strategic reasons than technical in both the benefits and barriers.
Organisations are more concerned about the impact on their day-to-day operations
and their overall business strategy in adopting cloud computing for ERP.
This could be because of the targeted spectators of this survey as they viewed the
benefits and barriers from the managerial perspective and hence, the technical
aspects were given less important.
Summing up the following conclusions are drawn from this research:
There is high level of uncertainty in terms of operational and strategic
characteristics of cloud computing mostly due to possibility of easily solving
the technical issues related to cloud adoption for cloud computing.
The results of this research can be applicable in practical areas of ERP systems and
cloud computing. The theoretical benefits and barriers ontology model can be used
by organisations, cloud service providers as a basis of identifying potential barriers
and benefits of cloud computing adoption for ERP systems.
6.2 Limitations of the research
The build-up of cloud computing is increasing at a very faster rate in media than the
practice being recorded in applicable academic literature (Bannerman, 2010). Thus
the discovery of possible benefits and barriers in migrating ERP systems to the cloud
may be restricted to when compared to what would really happen in the practicality.
In addition, since cloud computing being a relatively new concept in terms of
adoption for ERP systems, it was very challenging to capture the view of the IT
professional that have practically implemented ERP systems on the cloud. Hence, the
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
60 Information School, The University of Sheffield
data aimed for the research was limited to the opinion of IT professionals who have
either experience or knowledge or both in ERP systems and cloud computing.
Deficiency of coverage to projects based on migrating ERP systems to the cloud has
limited the possibility of the research contributors to identify more concrete benefits
and barriers in migrating ERP systems to the cloud. Additionally, because of limited
time for this research and availability issues of the IT professionals, it was not
possible to gather responses of larger group of IT professionals and so was limited
only to benefits and barriers. Continued interviews and a qualitative study would
have further extended the details of the research findings into the benefits and
barriers and their priorities.
6.3 Recommendations
Most organisations have their own requirements and resources for their ERP
systems, so it is difficult to give single view or recommendation for cloud computing
adoption for ERP systems. However, a thorough analysis of the requirement and
ability to spend in terms of capital must be carried out before considering the
adoption of cloud computing for ERP systems. Built on the findings of the research
the following recommendations for organisations adopting and implementing cloud:
a) Organisations should consider their current ERP systems and its volume in
terms of both the no. of applications and users which affect the cost and time
for cloud adoption.
b) Organisations should consider all the categories of benefits and barriers i.e.
technical, operational, and strategic before taking the decision of migrating
ERP systems to the cloud.
c) The ontology framework developed for benefits and barriers would be helpful
to for the practicality and feasibility study.
The findings of this research can also be referred to recommends the cloud providers
and organisations:
a) Technical experts and functional experts or managers should work in unison
to remove the barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud. These steps
should be replicated in the business processes and strategies of organisations,
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
61 Information School, The University of Sheffield
and also in the cloud services and service providers including the cloud
models.
b) To build a trust between organisation and cloud provider and also to increase
the rate at which the cloud adoption occurs, the cloud services models and the
policies should be clear in technical, operational and strategic terms.
6.4 Scope of further research
The adoption of cloud computing for ERP systems is still new and undeveloped,
especially when it comes to analysing the benefits and barriers. Hence there is a very
high scope for further research.
a) A qualitative study on benefits and barriers can further concrete the
perception on benefits and barriers of migrating ERP systems and their
priorities.
b) This study can be further boosted by qualitative approaches to identify and
rank the benefits and barriers for migrating ERP systems to the cloud.
c) This study can also be used to develop a strategy on how to migrate ERP
system to the cloud.
d) This research was very generic and simple in terms of cloud adoption in the
type of industry. With increase in adoption of cloud, the strategies can be
more focused on specific type of industry based on their size and mode of
operation.
e) The growth in cloud adoption for ERP over the period of time must provide
the scope of more insulated and industry specific assessment of benefits and
barriers. This kind of study can develop a very strong literature source on
Enterprise cloud computing by identifying new benefits and barriers and
framing a strategy for migrating ERP systems to the cloud.
(Total word count :13660)
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
62 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Bibliography Abadi, D. J., 2009. Data Management in the Cloud: Limitations and Opportunities. IEEE Data
Engineering Bulletin, 1(1).
Armbrust, M. et al., 2009. Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing. UC
Berkeley Reliable Adaptive Distributed Systems Laboratory.
Bajenaru, A., 2010. SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE AND CLOUD COMPUTING, A SOLUTION FOR
SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED COMPANIES. Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov,
Volume 3, pp. 173-184.
Bamiah, M. & Brohi, S., 2010. Seven Deadly Threats and Vulnerabilities in Cloud Computing.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES,
9(1), pp. 87-90.
Bannerman, P., 2010. Cloud Computing Adoption Risks: State of Play. Sydney, Software
Engineering Conference, pp. 2118-2133.
Berl, A. et al., 2010. Energy-Efficient Cloud Computing. The Computer Journal, 1(1), pp.
1045-1051.
Bhardwaj, S., Jain, L. & Jain, S., 2010. An Approach for Investigating Perspective of Cloud.
International Journal of Computer Applications, 10(2), pp. 40-43.
Bhaskar, P., Admela, J., Dimitrios, K. & Yves, G., 2011. Architectural Requirements for Cloud
Computing Systems: An Enterprise Cloud Approach. Grid Computing, 9(1), pp. 3-26.
Bisong, A. & Rahman, S., 2011. AN OVERVIEW OF THE SECURITY CONCERNS IN ENTERPRISE
CLOUD COMPUTING. International Journal of Network Security & Its Applications (IJNSA),
3(1), pp. 30-45.
Bouvry, P., Audzevich, Y. & Khan, S., 2010. GreenCloud: A Packet-level Simulator of Energy-
aware Cloud Computing Data Centers. Luxembourg, Global Telecommunications
Conference (GLOBECOM 2010), 2010 IEEE.
Buyyaa, R. et al., 2008. Cloud computing and emerging IT platforms: Vision, hype, and
reality for delivering computing as the 5th utility. Future Generation Computer Systems,
25(6), pp. 599-616.
Buyya, R. & Garg, S. K., 2011. Green Cloud computing and Environmental Sustainability.
Melbourne, The University of Melbourne.
Coupa, 2011. The Cost and Benefits of On-Demand vs.On-Premise Procurement Software.
[Online]
Available at: get.coupa.com/rs/coupa/images/on-demand-vs-on-premise.pdf
[Accessed 20 8 2012].
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
63 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Dezdar, S. & Sulaiman, A., 2009. Successful enterprise resource planning implementation:
taxonomy of critical factors. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 109(8), pp. 1037 -
1052.
Dillon, T., Wu, C. & Elizabeth, C., 2010. Cloud Computing: Issues and Challenges. Perth,
Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA), 2010 24th IEEE International
Conference.
E.M. Shehab, M. S. S. a. T. S., 2004. Enterprise resource planning An integrative review.
Business Process Management Journal, pp. 359-386.
Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. & Lowe, A., 2008. Management Research: An Introduction.
London: Sage.
Ehie, I. C. & Madsen, M., 2005. Identifying critical issues in enterprise resource planning
(ERP) implementation. Computers in Industry, 56(6), p. 545–557.
Feuerlicht, G., Burkon, L. & Sebesta, M., 2011. Cloud Computing Adoption: What are the
Issues?. Systémová integrace, pp. 187-192.
Goel, S., Kiran, R. & Garg, D., 2011. Impact of Cloud Computing on ERP implementations in
Higher Education. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications,
2(6), pp. 146-148.
Hoffman, P., 2010. Cloud Computing: The Limits of Public Clouds for Business Applications.
Internet Computing, IEEE, 14(6), pp. 90-93.
Hofmann, P., 2010. The Limits of Public Clouds for Business Applications. Internet
Computing, IEEE, 14(6), pp. 90-93.
Hofmann, P. & Woods, D., 2010. Cloud Computing:The Limits of Public Clouds for Business
Applications. Internet Computing, IEEE, 14(6), pp. 90-93.
Khajeh-Hosseini, A., Greenwood, D., Smith, J. & Sommerville, I., 2011. The Cloud Adoption
Toolkit:Supporting Cloud Adoption Decisions in the Enterprise. Software: Practice and
Experience, 42(4), p. 447–465.
Khajeh-Hosseini, A., Sommerville, I. & Sriram, I., 2010. Research Challenges for Enterprise
Cloud Computing. s.l., eprint arXiv:1001.3257.
Kothari, C., 2004. Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. Delhi: New Age
International Publishers.
LORIN M. HITT, D. W. ,. Z., 2002. ERP Investment: Business Impact and Productivity
Measures. Journal of Management Information Systems, pp. 71-98 .
Maguire, S., Ojiako, U. & Said, A., 2009. ERP implementation in Omantel:a case study.
Industrial Management & Data Systems, 110(1), pp. 78 - 92.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
64 Information School, The University of Sheffield
MAKKAR G.D., M. B., 2012. EAAS - ERP AS A SERVICE. Journal of Information and Operations
Management, pp. 141-145.
Makkar, G. & Bist, M., 2012. EAAS - ERP AS A SERVICE. Journal of Information and
Operations Management, 3(1), pp. 141-145.
Mangiuc, D., 2011. ENTERPRISE 2.0 – IS THE MARKET READY?. Accounting and Management
Information Systems, 10(4), pp. 516-534.
Marston, S., Bandyopadhyay, S., Zhanga, J. & Ghalsasib, A., 2011. Cloud computing — The
business perspective. Hawaii, System Sciences (HICSS), pp. 176-189.
Michael Armbrust, A. F. G. D. J. K. K. L. P. R. S. Z., 2010 . A view of cloud computing.
Communications of the ACM , pp. 50-58 .
Mohan, T., 2011. Migrating into the Cloud. CLOUD COMPUTING Principles and Paradigms,
pp. 43 - 56.
Moreno , S. I. & Xu , J., 2011. Energy-Efficiency in Cloud Computing Environments:Towards
Energy Savings without Performance Degradation. International Journal of Cloud
Applications and Computing (IJCAC), 1(1), pp. 17-33.
Mozammel-Bin-Motalab & Shohag, S. A. M., 2011. Cloud Computing and the Business
Consequences of ERP use. International Journal of Computer Applications, 28(8), pp. 31-37.
Mvelase, P., Dlodlo, N., Williams, Q. & Adigun, M., 2011. Virtual enterprise model for
enabling cloud computing for SMMEs. New York, ACM New York.
Nonaka, I., 1994. A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation. Organization
Science, 5(1), pp. 14-37.
NORDOFF, D., 2010. Client Server vs Cloud Computing. [Online]
Available at: http://clear-cloud.com/client_server_vs_cloud_computing.html
[Accessed 28 8 2012].
Oracle, 2011. Oracle.com. [Online]
Available at: www.oracle.com/us/solutions/sap/database/sap-erp-cloud-352626.pdf
[Accessed 15 08 2012].
Pettey, C., 2010. Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2011. [Online]
Available at: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1454221
[Accessed 14 August 2012].
Raihana, G., 2012. CLOUD ERP – A SOLUTION MODEL. International Journal of Computer
Science and Information Technology & Security (IJCSITS), 2(1), pp. 76-79.
Raihana, G. F. H., 2012. CLOUD ERP – A SOLUTION MODEL. IRACST - International Journal of
Computer Science and Information Technology & Security, 2(1).
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
65 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Rajkumar Buyya, C. S. Y. S. V., 2008. Market-Oriented CloudComputing:Vision, Hype, and
Reality for Delivering IT Services as Computing Utilities. Melbourne, Manjrasoft Pty Ltd, pp.
5 - 13 .
Rochwerger, B. et al., 2009. The Reservoir model and architecture foropen federated cloud
computing. IBM Journal of Research and Development, 53(4), pp. 4:1 - 4:11.
Saeed, I., Juell-Skielse, G. & Uppstorm, E., 2011. Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning
Adoption:Motives & Barriers. s.l., Fifth International Conference on Re-search and Practical
Issues of Enterprise Information Systems.
Saini, S., Saini, D., Yousif, J. & Khandage, S., 2011. Cloud Computing and Enterprise Resource
Planning Systems. London, Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering.
Salleh, S. M., Teoh, S. Y. & Chan, C., 2012. CLOUD ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS: A REVIEW OF
LITERATURE. [Online]
Available at:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=cloud%20enterprise%20systems%3A%20a%20
review%20of%20literature&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDMQFjAA&url=http%3A%
2F%2Fpacis2012.org%2Ffiles%2Fpapers%2Fpacis2012_T9_Salleh_295.pdf&ei=y8tDUJCKM_
ST0QWkjoCoDw&usg=AFQjC
[Accessed 2 8 2012].
Saunders, M., (2009. Research methods for busines students. Harlow: Pearson Education
Limited.
Saunders, M., 2009d. Understanding reseach philosophies and approaches. Harlow: Pearson
Education Limited.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A., 2009b. Critically Reviewing the Literature. Harlow:
Pearson Education Limited.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A., 2012. Research Methods for Business Students.
Essex: Pearson Educucation Limites.
Savolainen, E., 2010. Cloud Service Models. Seminar – Cloud Computing and Web Services.
Savolainen, E., 2010. Cloud Service Models. Seminar – Cloud Computing and Web Services.
Shukla, S., Agarwal, S. & Shukla, A., 2012. Trends in Cloud-ERP for SMB’s : A Review.
International Journal of New Innovations in Engineering and Technology, 1(1).
Singh, S. & Jangwal, T., 2012. Cost breakdown of Public Cloud Computing and Private Cloud
Computing and Security Issues. International Journal of Computer Science & Information
Technology, 4(2), pp. 17-31.
Vouk, M. A., 2008. Cloud Computing – Issues,Research and Implementations. Journal of
Computing and Information Technology, p. 235–246.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
66 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Vouk, M. A., 2008. Cloud Computing – Issues,Research and Implementations. Journal of
Computing and Information Technology, 16(4), p. 235–246.
Walloschek, T. & Stocker, E., 2011. Understanding Cloud Computing Vulnerabilities. Security
& Privacy, IEEE, 9(2), pp. 50 - 57.
Wang, L. et al., 2010. Cloud Computing: a Perspective Study. New Generation Computing,
28(2), pp. 137-146.
Wei , Y. & Blake, M. B., 2010. Service-Oriented Computing and Cloud Computing Challenges
and Opportunities. Internet Computing, IEEE, 14(6), pp. 72-75.
Youseff, L. B. M. & Da Silva, D., 2008. Toward a Unified Ontology of Cloud Computing. Grid
Computing Environments Workshop, pp. 1 - 10.
Zhang , S., Zhang , S., Chen , X. & Huo , X., 2010. Cloud Computing Research and
Development Trend. Tangshan, Future Networks, 2010. ICFN '10. Second International
Conference.
Zhang, Q., Cheng , L. & Boutaba, R., 2010. Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research
challenges. J Internet Serv Appl, 1(1), p. 7–18.
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
67 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Appendix A: Questionnaire
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
68 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
69 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
70 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
71 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
72 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
73 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
74 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
75 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
76 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
77 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
78 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
79 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
80 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
81 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Appendix B Ethics Application Form
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
82 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
83 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
84 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
85 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
86 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Appendix C Information Sheet
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
87 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
88 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
89 Information School, The University of Sheffield
Benefits and Barriers of migrating ERP systems to the cloud 2012
90 Information School, The University of Sheffield