Strategic Implications of Cloud Computing as a Competitive Advantage in the Banking Industry in Kenya

Abstract

Cloud computing is the offering of computing resources over the internet. Cloud computing is the most popular rising computing model that benefit from massive approval. Strategy is depicted as a set of beliefs on how a firm can achieve success. The purpose of strategy is to provide directional cues to the organization that permit it to achieve its objectives while responding to the opportunities and threats in the environment. Competitive advantage is an organization’s ability to perform in one or more ways that competitors will not and cannot match. The objective of the study was to determine the strategic implication of cloud computing as a competitive advantage in the banking industry in Kenya. This study adopted a cross-sectional survey. The target population of the study was the top 10 best performing commercial banks operating in Kenya. Both primary and secondary data were collected for the study. The completed questionnaires were first edited and checked for completeness and consistency and analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics using SPSS version 20.0. The study established that cloud computing transformed the banking experience and customer relationships by leveraging social and mobile media as. The study also established that cloud computing can hold ground for the banks overall vision, mission and objectives in achieving the overall competitive strategy. The study concluded that leveraging social and mobile media has enabled the banking industry to improve on customer relationship. The study also concluded that costs, lack of technical knowhow and security were major challenge faced when trying to use cloud computing for strategic/competitive advantage. It is also recommended that the banking industry should consider migrating its services to in the future to a digital platform so as to improve customer relationships and other areas of operation. It is recommended that further studies be done to establish in depth the challenges facing adoption of cloud technology as a competitive advantage in banking industry and a recommendation on how they can be addressed. The implications of this study to the Kenyan banking sector is that it should be used as a guide to further pursue interest in identifying the strategic implications of cloud computing in their banking environments.