Benefits And Challenges Of Cloud Computing Technology Adoption In Small And Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Abstract

In today's digital era and globalization, many small and medium business (SME) businesses are adopting cloud computing for the company's operations. Cloud computing is a growing data center technology in line with increas-ing traffic on the internet in the era of the Internet of Things (IoT). This technology overcomes the weaknesses of conven-tional servers for speed, scalability, and efficiency. However, there are still SMEs who are not sure of the benefits of cloud services. Therefore, this research is conducted to explore the opinions of SMEs about the benefits of cloud computing ser-vices in their business operations that encourage them to adopt this service. The qualitative research method is conducted by interviewing the top management of a number of SMEs engaged in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry. SMEs are domiciled in Jakarta and Bandung, Indonesia and have been using cloud computing platform services. The results found that the most perceived benefits of cloud computing are cost savings because it can reduce cap-ital expenditures, such as procurement of computers with high performance and purchase their own server by SMEs. On the other hand, the service enhances the company's internal organizational processes to accelerate decision making, expand markets, and speed up communication with customers. However, the security aspect and the limited provision of infrastructure remain a challenge for the adoption of cloud computing in SMEs in Indonesia. The company's effective strategy is considered to be able to minimize the negative impact of this challenge.