Communications of the Cloud Software, Volume 2, Issue 1, 2013 (published Dec 31st, 2013)
From the Editors
Organizations adopting the cloud paradigm have observed, that cloud is much more than a technology issue. It changes the organization both internally and impacts it through the external environment.
This issue of Communications of Cloud Software addresses both of the internal and external views. The external competitive environment requires agile collaboration with partners in the networked ecosystems. Practices for providing extreme user experience following the feedback from the users and new methods for changing the business models for adopting these changes are needed more than ever.
The transformation from traditional ways of working into agile development and agile operations requires new organizational capabilities and staff competences. Decisions cannot take place far from the operations rather than agile teams operating the services need to have the competences for mastering technical and business aspects as well as the user experience along with the operations. You cannot learn all in the slow way while you have to master the essentials fast. Speed is the key.
How can this be done? The articles in this issue address some of the key issues that established businesses face while transforming to the cloud era. We encourage you to comment on the articles – as well as to submit your own papers!
- Editors
Research article
TRANSFORMATION TOWARD A CLOUD BUSINESS MODEL
Keywords: Business model, cloud business, transformation, ecosystem
Cloud technologies have widely been discussed within telecommunications research and practice. Compared to traditional software product business, the cloud enabled service business can be significantly different in nature. Therefore the transformation resulting in the implementation of cloud technologies can be drastic. There are gaps in current literature in the business implications of cloud technologies as well as cloud driven business model transformation. Drawing on business model, change and cloud literature, as well as on a single case study, this paper investigates the cloud business model transformation of an incumbent company. The results of the research indicate that Cloud as a business environment places specific demands for incumbents. This results in step-by-step planning and implementation of business model changes. In addition, customer value related phenomena value co-creation, co-capture and co-opetition appear as key elements in planning and implementing business model transformation toward the Cloud.
Cloud and Lean Transformation from Capabilities Viewpoint
Keywords: Cloud, Lean, Organizational learning, Capabilities
Today, the cloud phenomenon is challenging companies’ product and service development and also their business and revenue models. Many companies are in the middle of a fundamental change – transformation – in order to benefit from the opportunities that the cloud offers. At the same time, interest in lean thinking has grown in industries and research communities. Lean paradigm is assessed as a potential means to help companies pursue efficiency and better organizational performance. This paper discusses cloud and lean transformation in a large Information and Communication Technology (ICT) company, which has risen to the challenge of the cloud. This paper studies if organizational learning, which is one corner stone of lean thinking, has impact on the company’s capabilities. This paper proposes a revised transformation framework with the new aspect of capabilities.
THE IMPACT OF USER EXPERIENCE WORK ON CLOUD SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Keywords: Cloud, Software, Agile development, User experience (UX)
Cloud computing is getting more popular means to provide software to end users. However, little is known about how to develop Cloud software that provides good user experience. This paper introduces an Agile software development model where a product owner and user experience specialist work closely together from the beginning. We followed a distributed project team consisting of a product owner, user experience specialist, technical specialist, scrum master, and five developers for eleven weeks. We observed that the project benefitted in several ways from the close cooperation between the product owner and user experience specialist. The project team was able to dramatically shorten their lead time, improve user satisfaction and decrease the amount of work in progress.
