Evaluation of Cloud Business Intelligence Prior to Adoption: The Voice of Small Business Enterprises in a South African Township

摘要

The purpose of this qualitative study was to provide an insight into how small business enterprises from a South African township evaluated cloud business intelligence solutions and the challenges faced. The study found that despite limited knowledge in security evaluation and lack of easy-to-use techniques for small business enterprise, decision makers conducted basic and unsystematic evaluation of cloud business intelligence prior to adoption. Unsystematic security evaluation was mainly on data security, access control functionalities such as authentication, cloud service providers' security, trust and reliability and financial risks. The study concluded that an easy-to-use security evaluation framework for cloud business intelligence solution tailored for small business enterprises was a necessity to overcome challenges among enterprises in South African townships in order to enhance good security practices when adopting cloud services.