Analysis of Cloud Computing in the Australian Retail Industry

This business research analysis investigates the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for businesses, specifically within the Australian retail industry. The report explores the major characteristics of cloud computing, highlighting its benefits such as cost reduction, improved efficiency, scalability, and enhanced data management. It also discusses the different cloud service models, including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, and deployment methods like public, private, and hybrid clouds. The literature review provides insights into the impact of cloud computing on retail operations, including supply chain management, customer interaction, and data handling. The analysis identifies gaps and concludes with recommendations for enhancing the efficiency of cloud computing approaches in the retail sector. The report examines both the positive and negative aspects of cloud computing, offering a comprehensive overview of its role and implications for businesses in Australia.

Running head: BUSINESS RESEARCH ANALYSIS
Business research analysis
Name of student
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BUSINESS RESEARCH ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Project scope....................................................................................................................................3
Project objectives.............................................................................................................................4
Literature review..............................................................................................................................4
Introduction..................................................................................................................................4
Major characteristics of cloud computing....................................................................................5
Advantages of cloud computing for businesses...........................................................................5
Cloud services and deployment...................................................................................................8
Disadvantages of cloud computing for businesses......................................................................9
Gaps found.................................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The business research analysis topic focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of
utilising cloud computing for businesses in Australia. The cloud computing enables to form a
cloud, which acts as a major component that delivers computing resources such as various
applications, servers and is managed over the internet on the basis of payment for usage. Cloud
computing is done over internet, which can provide shared computer processing resources and
dedicated servers to other computer systems according to the demands (Aljabre 2012). This can
also help the business organisations to gain accessibility to a shared pool of computing resources
including computing networks, servers, storage, services and applications and less effort by
management are required.
The retail industry in Australia has been benefited by cloud computing, because of the
abilities to store and process data and information on a private cloud. It is also possible on a third
party server for ensuring proper data accessibility and sharing of resources with ease. The up-
front infrastructure costs are reduced largely, and business organisations can focus more on the
business processes and manage running applications at a faster rate (Abdollahzadegan et al.
2013). Though it reduces a significant amount of costs for management of infrastructure, still the
administrators for avoiding high charges use the cloud-pricing model.
Project scope
The scope of the project is quite good, and the research analysis of business has focused
on the utilisation of cloud computing in the retail industry of Australia. From the research, the
benefits and drawbacks of cloud computing would be understood, which would further enhance
the scope for conducting the research in the future as well (Habib et al. 2013). The place where

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cloud computing has created a positive impact on business is Australia, and the retail business
industry has been chosen as effective in this research.
Project objectives
 To identify the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing in the Australian retail
industry
 To evaluate the various approaches to which cloud computing has been possible within
the industry
 To assess the impact of cloud computing of the retail business in Australia
 To recommend measures for enhancing the efficiency of cloud computing approaches in
business
Literature review
Introduction
With the introduction of newer technologies, high capacity networks and effective
storage devices, the virtualization of hardware components, maintenance of service oriented
architecture, and autonomic computing system have resulted in the formation of cloud
computing in business. The computing needs have increased with the increase in demands, and it
has benefited the business organisations such as JB Hi Fi, Woolworths, Commonwealth Bank of
Australia to access the data and information properly, manage cheap costs of services, maintain
high scalability, high performances and ensure good computing power too (Fernando, Loke and
Rahayu 2013).

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Major characteristics of cloud computing
The cloud computing in business enables to improve the flexibility of users by expanding
technological infrastructure resources as well as reduce the costs incurred. Many businesses
adapt the cloud computing model for converting the capital expenditures to operational
expenditures, which reduces the chances of barriers to entry. Due to its location independent
ability, users can access data and information by opening a web browser from anywhere via the
internet (Jamsa 2012). The multitenancy ability of cloud computing also helps in centralising the
infrastructure in various locations by lowering the costs and increasing the efficiency of systems.
This further results in increasing the production level and offer better scalability and flexibility to
allow for the continuation of business and recover data and information, which may be lost due
to natural disasters or power failure. Due to the centralization of data, the security has improved,
thereby allowing the users to control the infrastructure and prevent users from losing control of
securing information and data within businesses (Hashem et al. 2015).
Advantages of cloud computing for businesses
According to Aljabre (2012), cloud computing technology has been used by many
organisations in Australia for expanding its services in the international business market,
reducing the costs of IT as well as manage integration of new systems to revolutionise the retail
industry. Few advantages of cloud computing are the business organisations in Australia have
been able to interact with the consumers with much more ease and even make them accessibility
to the company web sites for gaining a good shopping experience (Christauskas and Miseviciene
2012). The cloud computing has also helped the retail organizations to improve the supply chain
platform and draw in greater benefits through obtaining of real time information about the status
of customers, manage streamlining of inventories and processes as well as gather marketing data.

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The cloud computing provides the most relevant computing resources all under the cloud,
which has been preferred by many organisations within the Australian retail sector to track and
control data and ensure that money is not wasted on buying new equipment and machineries
(Rittinghouse and Ransome 2016). One of the major advantages of using cloud computing is the
saving of money on maintenance of servers because maintaining servers and allow proper
internet facility for accessing data and information incurs huge effort and cost for many other
companies. Cloud computing saves a lot of money, which has been utilised for other purposes
like introducing new stores in Australia for drawing in more customers, manage recruitment and
selection process and focus on improving the business processes and functions (Gupta,
Seetharaman and Raj 2013).
Based on the responses of Jamsa (2012), a retail organisation deals with big data, and
cloud computing has opened up new ways to handle these data properly in everyday operations,
considering the size of business organisations. Few cloud computing tools such as Hadoop have
been used by companies within the retail industry to extract the needs of the organisation and
control data, and information flow to understand what the customers prefer and how well the
products are being sold in the market (Cegielski et al. 2012). Cloud computing improves the
efficiency of internal business operations by empowering the staffs to communicate with other
workers easily and ensure high productivity. There are many retail companies including Myer
Australia, Redbubble, Woolworths, etc. which have increased their spending on cloud computing
by more than 25 percent and employed good IT personnel for delivering enhanced IT solutions
effectively. According to Christauskas and Miseviciene (2012), the retailing companies can
either pay for the computing systems, storage and licenses regarding software usage by
considering a subscription or pay by usage (Berman et al. 2012). Based on the demands, the

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designing of IT infrastructure is done for managing a proper base load and gain the computing
resources to handle certain business situations with ease and effectiveness. One of the major
benefits could be that by moving a particular portion of IT infrastructure to cloud on a pay per
use basis might reduce significant costs and deliver better customers’ experiences by having
proper service level agreements with the providers of cloud services (Sultan and van de Bunt-
Kokhuis 2012).
The traditional computer systems and databases incur huge amounts of money, and the
licensing fees further add up to the cost and become very expensive for business organisations to
handle business processes properly. The cloud computing is cheap and can easily reduce the IT
expenses, because of which it is considered as cost effective. The retail industries no longer have
to store information in databases, which have a certain limitation for storage (Chang, Walters and
Wills 2013). Cloud offers unlimited storage facility that allows for storage of data and
information in bulk amounts. Rittinghouse and Ransome (2016) stated that benefit of cloud
computing is its ability to backup and restore the data, which is much convenient than storing
information and data on a physical device. Cloud computing enables automatic software
integration, which can also help in customising the options and select the most suitable software
applications and IT services that will be delivered (Almorsy, Grundy and Müller 2016).
The capital expenditures incurred for buying the hardware and software components and
setting up the on-site data centers, servers and electricity for power and cooling has been
decreased. The retail companies in Australia have obtained a huge amount of IT resources within
the right time along with proper software patching, setting up of hardware and IT solutions
management. The cloud computing services that are run by the retail companies have been
upgraded to faster computing hardware systems for enhancing the performance and reduce

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network latency rates, thereby leading to greater economies of scale (Jadeja and Modi 2012).
Last but not the least, cloud computing has created newer scopes for the business organisations
within the Australian retail sector to manage quick deployment and ensure the entire system to
start functioning within a few minutes (Gai and Li 2012).
Cloud services and deployment
The cloud computing services have brought several benefits to the retail companies in
Australia, so it is important to know all the types of cloud computing services that are available.
The infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service or
Saas are the three components into which the cloud services have been categorised. These are
known as cloud computing stack and can help the business organisations to achieve the business
goals and objectives with ease and effectiveness (Nkhoma et al. 2013).
According to Hashem et al (2015), Infrastructure as a service or IaaS allows the
companies to rent an IT infrastructure for ensuring that the servers, virtual machines, storage
devices, operating systems and networks function properly and develop a cloud provider on a
pay basis. Platform as a service (PaaS) is another cloud service provider, which creates a
platform to develop, test, deliver and manage software applications, which can help the
companies to store relevant data and information regarding clients and use those to implement
effective marketing strategies (Sajid and Raza 2013). The mobile apps are also created with this
service, which has created more convenience for the organisations to access the mobile apps
concerning the related company and search for products and services that they want to purchase.
The Software as a service or Saas delivers better software applications through use of internet
based on demands and pay use basis. The cloud providers manage host, software applications
and infrastructures for ensuring up-gradation of software, patch the security codes as well as

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allow the users to run the mobile app and gain relevant knowledge and information of the
company (Aljabre 2012).
The three ways of deploying cloud computing resources include public, private and
hybrid. A third party cloud services provider operates the public clouds. The services are
accessed, and accounts are managed with the help of a web browser. The Microsoft Azure is an
example of the public cloud. The private cloud is mainly used by single business organisations
within the retail sector. The private cloud is located n the on-site data center while money is
provided to the third party cloud providers for hosting the cloud and here all the services are
managed within a private network (Abdollahzadegan et al. 2013). The hybrid cloud is the
combination of both public and private clouds with the help of technology, and it can help in
sharing and exchange of data, information, knowledge and applications. It is a beneficial way of
managing transfer and exchange of data and applications between private and public clouds,
which offers better flexibility to the business organisations during the deployment of cloud
services (Habib et al. 2012).
Disadvantages of cloud computing for businesses
Though there are vast numbers of benefits of using cloud computing in businesses
nowadays, Cegielski et al (2012) stated that there are drawbacks as well such as technical issues,
lack of security in the cloud, vulnerable to external attacks like viruses and malware. The
information and data present on the cloud are accessible anytime and anywhere, which can
sometimes lead to severe technical issues regardless of how much high standards of maintenance
are considered (Fernando, Loke and Rahayu 2013). Without a good internet connection, it is not
effective for managing servers and networks and may further result in networking and
connectivity issues. The business organisations within the retail industry often disclose important

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information and data to the third party cloud service providers, which can be used for wrong
purposes and can put the company in higher risks as well. Thus, it is necessary to choose the
most reliable cloud service provider, so that the information provided is kept secure and
authenticated. Due to the unlimited storage capacity, the companies can even face external
hacking attacks because of the lack of security of networks by using the internet (Jamsa 2012).
Though cloud computing offers extensive network and IT solutions, still it cannot serve
for every purposes within a business scenario. The cloud computing efficiency mainly depends
on reliable internet connection and this can often create complexities in case the internet
connection suffers from frequent disruption and slow speed. There could be a breach of data
through hacking and even due to disclosure of passwords and user name, which might hinder the
security of the businesses (Hashem et al. 2015). According to Gupta (2013), cloud computing
brings negative impact on small organizations as no capital investments for license and
infrastructure is required, still is is important to include all the features and applications for
managing cloud properly, a good amount of investments are needed to be done. Cloud services
vendor must provide plenty of options for providing technical support through emails, phone,
live conversations and user forums, which would take a lot of effort and money as well and
might be difficult for small or new organisations within the retail industry (Christauskas and
Miseviciene 2012). Therefore, these are the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing
for businesses.
Gaps found
There are few limitations found in this research such as the advantages of cloud
computing are demonstrated properly though some additional data and information was needed
for finding out the drawbacks of cloud computing in a detailed manner. Few of the research

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articles were not authenticated and reliable enough, which might have hindered the successful
completion of the research (Rittinghouse and Ransome 2016).
Conclusion
The topic illustrated about the different kinds of benefits and disadvantages, which have
been obtained by the business organisations within the retail industry in Australia. The scope of a
project and few of the major objectives related to the impact of cloud computing, its drawbacks
and ways of implementing cloud computing had been included here. The literature review
section included the comparative analysis where few authors agreed to the fact that cloud
computing brought positivity whereas few believed that the cloud computing had created a
negative impact on businesses. Though there were few drawbacks of using cloud computing, still
it is true to the fact that cloud computing has revolutionised the ways by which business
processes have been managed within the retail industry with ease and efficiency.

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References
Aljabre, A., 2012. Cloud computing for increased business value. International Journal of
Business and social science, 3(1).
Abdollahzadegan, A., Hussin, C., Razak, A., Moshfegh Gohary, M. and Amini, M., 2013. The
organizational critical success factors for adopting cloud computing in SMEs.
Habib, S.M., Hauke, S., Ries, S. and Mühlhäuser, M., 2012. Trust as a facilitator in cloud
computing: a survey. Journal of Cloud Computing: Advances, Systems and Applications, 1(1),
p.19.
Fernando, N., Loke, S.W. and Rahayu, W., 2013. Mobile cloud computing: A survey. Future
generation computer systems, 29(1), pp.84-106.
Jamsa, K., 2012. Cloud computing. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Hashem, I.A.T., Yaqoob, I., Anuar, N.B., Mokhtar, S., Gani, A. and Khan, S.U., 2015. The rise
of “big data” on cloud computing: Review and open research issues. Information Systems, 47,
pp.98-115.
Christauskas, C. and Miseviciene, R., 2012. Cloud–computing based accounting for small to
medium sized business. Engineering Economics, 23(1), pp.14-21.
Rittinghouse, J.W. and Ransome, J.F., 2016. Cloud computing: implementation, management,
and security. CRC press.
Gupta, P., Seetharaman, A. and Raj, J.R., 2013. The usage and adoption of cloud computing by
small and medium businesses. International Journal of Information Management, 33(5), pp.861-
874.