Continual advances in technology and product differentiation have led to the dawn of cloud computing where virtually any computerized service – hard or soft – can be outsourced. Now that well-known companies such as Amazon and Google use their spare capacity and specific expertise for this purpose and begin advertising, all small business owners and IT managers must take its offerings into consideration. The potential benefits as well as the risks involved need to be weighed in light of the overall business strategy before deciding which services to subcontract. There are a great deal of services and applications available and choosing among them requires a multi-factor analysis. Because cloud computing is a young field and involves placing company assets under external control, there is significant risk involved; indeed, this is the reason why cloud computing is only growing at a gradual rate. The manager or CIO must carefully select which aspects of his/r business model are amenable to outsourcing and use a variety of criteria, including a balanced scorecard, to make a final decision. This paper examines an experimental approach to assessing whether organizations are ready for cloud computing.
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