Assessing the effectiveness of an it governance practices when adopting cloud computing

Abstract: The worldwide use of cloud computing has caused academics and professionals to become interested in studies around benefits and risks of cloud computing. Despite known risks like data security and loss of data control, cloud computing has attracted many organisations due to cost benefits and scalability. Because of this together with other factors organisations do not pay enough attention to how cloud computing affects the governance of information technology and the effect on existing security policies, business processes and service-level agreement regulations. This study explored the effectiveness of information technology governance’s practices when adopting cloud computing at organisational level. In order to validate and evaluate the research problem, quantitative methodology was used. Primary data were collected through questionnaires that were distributed via email to professionals who adopted or who were planning to adopt cloud computing within the next three years. The data collected were analysed using Excel. The results indicated that cloud-computing adoption brings a new approach to the governance of IT, being a more contractual than physical approach used in traditional IT systems. Additionally, IT governance enablers, such as business processes and security policies, are highly affected when adopting cloud computing. Moreover, organisations rely mostly on service-level agreements provided by cloud computing providers rather than setting service-level agreement expectations and demands at organisational level. This supports the view that strong service-level agreements are fundamental when adopting cloud computing and new technology, which affect business processes. This research study concluded that IT governance is critical and useful when adopting cloud computing. However, existing IT and specifically designed cloud computing governance frameworks lack to address cloud-computing components holistically. Thus, there is still a need for future studies to design integrated IT governance frameworks and further examine the practical implementation of existing frameworks in cloud computing