Managing the Cloud for Information Systems Agility

Abstract

Change is endemic in modern business competition. In an age of globalization, with the rapid development of Internet technologies, changes occur at a much faster pace, and are also more unpredictable. Being agile in a turbulent environment has been ranked highly by executives in surveys of business issues conducted in past five years. Today nearly all organizations rely on information systems (IS) to operate. Agility in IS is critical in achieving overall agility in business. However, despite the interest from the practitioner community, IS agility (sometimes termed IT agility) in academia has received limited recognition and represents an under-researched area. The recent adoption of cloud computing services has presented a major change in the way IS are delivered, in the hope of creating more agile and responsive IS. However, whether or not cloud computing, as promised by the providers, increases IS agility, is still unclear. This research aims at providing a conceptualization of IS agility based on research to date, and examining how cloud computing might facilitate such agility. Based on a literature review, cloud computing services (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS) are analyzed against multiple aspects of IS agility. Only IaaS is found to have the potential providing consistent agility, whereas agility at PaaS and SaaS levels is more determined by human/organization factors. Lastly, suggestions for businesses and directions to future research are proposed.