Critical Success Factors for Cloud Adoption Twenty-fifth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Cancun, 2019 1 Critical Success Factors for Cloud Computing Adoption in South Africa Completed Research Full Papers Rhyno Adendorff Milpark Business School rhynoa@vodamail.co.za Hanlie Smuts University of Pretoria hanlie.smuts@up.ac.za Abstract The adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) innovation offer the potential for organizations to enable effectiveness, increase efficiency, and achieve competitive advantage. One such ICT innovation is cloud computing and through its adoption, many benefits may be realized. However, although cloud computing awareness has increased in South Africa, cloud adoption in emerging economies is not prevalent. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the real world experiences and perceptions of the Information Technology (IT) professionals involved in the cloud adoption successes and failures in South African organizations. By analyzing the experiences of IT professionals, combined with the literature of cloud adoption, we present a set of critical success factors for cloud computing adoption in South Africa. The purpose of such critical success factors is to better equip organizations to address cloud computing adoption holistically and comprehensively. Keywords Cloud adoption, cloud, critical success factors, ICT innovation. Introduction The role of Information Technology (IT) innovation encompasses a wide range of benefits such as social and capital equality, health, education and commerce (Ganju et al. 2016). In a progressively digital world, technology innovation attracts significant attention in the formulation of organizational strategy, which strives to sustain or establish a competitive advantage in a market. Organizations have invested significantly in IT innovation, in an attempt to keep ahead of competitors (Rocha et al. 2016). One such IT innovation that is recognized as an important area for investment, is the use of internet- based technologies to conduct business through the use of virtual IT resources in a scalable on demand principle, or referred to as “cloud computing” (Gupta et al. 2013; Low et al. 2011). The adoption of cloud computing in an organization is comparable to a make-vs-buy or outsourcing decision in the business. Providers, on the other hand, realize savings by sharing virtual IT resources among clients thereby taking advantage of economies of scale (Gupta et al. 2013). This approach provides potential for significantly reduced cost of IT resources that can be scaled up or down, as organizations require varying levels of processing power (Tutunea 2014). However, the ability to take advantage of cloud computing benefits remains relatively low in most African countries as opposed to the developed world where this innovation has been identified as a driver of economic prosperity and productivity (Anyanwu 2012). In this context, renewed focus is required to address organizations’ readiness, as well as the perceptions of individuals within the organization, since they play a major role in the organizations’ ability to effectively implement cloud solutions (Sharma et al. 2016). Cloud adoption awareness in South Africa has increased to some extent, but adoption has been stifled by limitations, even though global cloud providers such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google are operational in this market (Gillwald and Moyo 2014). Furthermore, most cloud adoption studies have been conducted in developed countries and very few studies have been carried out on emerging economies like South Africa (Hinde and Van Belle 2012). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to consider the critical success factors for cloud computing adoption in South Africa. Building on the cloud computing research will contribute to