AN INVESTIGATION OF ANTICIPATED BENEFITS OF CLOUD COMPUTING ADOPTION IN AUSTRALIAN REGIONAL MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS

It is expected that computing services will increasingly be accessed as another utility a similar way to other services such as water, electricity, telephone or gas. Many organizations including government deliver their services through information and communication technology (ICT) tools including e-government. Cloud computing is a relatively new way of providing services over the internet. In this research in-depth interviews of Australian councils’ IT managers were conducted with the aim of providing insights into the perceived benefits of cloud computing adoption. Also, survey data from 480 IT staff across 47 local councils were collected to confirm the findings of the exploratory stage. The research indicated that cloud computing is seen to offer many benefits that are identified in the research literature; additional anticipated benefits emerged which related to reduced level of risk, remote access, reduce staff, and time efficiencies. The findings of this research may help IT managers and top management evaluate possible adoption by increasing their understanding about anticipated benefit which will encourage them when planning or decided to adopt cloud computing.