Key Issues for Embracing the Cloud Computing to Adopt a Digital Transformation: A study of Saudi Public Sector

The world is changing faster than ever, and digital technologies are bringing about unprecedented transformation and changing our work and lives in ways we have never anticipated. Digital transformation topic is an actively discussed these days. Internet of Things (IoT), big data, social media, cloud computing, blockchain, and augmented reality are driving organisations to the next level of digital customer engagement and IT-enabled business processes and services. Cloud computing is a key pillar of the digital transformation technology ecosystem. This paper highlights the cloud computing roles to achieve the digital transformation in Saudi Arabia, and it seeks to empirically examine the cloud computing concerns in the public sectors organisations of Saudi Arabia. An online questionnaire was launched aiming at the existing cloud computing adoption and its concerns in Saudi Arabia. Security, privacy and loss of governance are still the main obstacles for adopting cloud computing technology, although some organisations recognized their lack of knowledge in this field. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.