• Understand and explain the basic concepts of Cloud computing and its common applications for today’s businesses
• Describe different viewpoints on Cloud computing from the literature and assess the challenges and opportunities of this phenomenon in varying organizational contexts
• Identify and develop a business opportunity for Cloud-based services in a case scenario, either as an ‘independent entrepreneur’ or as part of an enterprise initiative
• Apply the concepts and tools from the course to design a Cloud solution that addresses a specific business opportunity or solves a specific business problem
• Evaluate a business case for using the Cloud or a prototype Cloud system from various angles including business model, user friendliness, and technical performance aspects

Cloud computing refers to a major paradigm shift in the software industry that is also transforming the way corporate information processing is taking place. Cloud providers such as Microsoft, Salesforce, IBM, Google, and Amazon give both user organizations as well as start-up companies the opportunity to build scalable business applications on service-based platforms with relatively low effort and practically no capital investment. Recent studies predict that Cloud computing can be a major source of productivity gains and new employment. However, in order to succeed in achieving payoffs, today’s business leaders need a profound understanding of the Cloud’s economic, technological and user-related implications.

This course gives students with business and/or IT backgrounds at the Master level (including part-time students, see below) the opportunity to equip themselves with the needed proficiencies on the ongoing Cloud trend and it provides a playground to experiment with some of the most popular Cloud platforms. Lectures and practical sessions cover both an introduction to selected IT development methods relevant to the Cloud computing phenomenon as well as a discussion of the broader managerial and economic issues. During the lectures, students will be introduced to the basic concepts of Cloud computing, the business applications of Cloud services, as well as underlying theoretical perspectives. Strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats associated with Cloud computing in different business contexts (e.g., in small versus in large enterprises) will also be discussed as part of this course. For the practical part, students will be given opportunities to apply the concepts and tools from the course to solve business problems or develop business ideas with existing cloud solutions or self-developed cloud-based prototypes as their project. This project can address a business issue from a chosen case organization or a new start-up business idea. 

The course evaluation will be based on an individual oral examination and a project report that evaluates a concrete Cloud business opportunity at a case organization or the developed prototype from economic and technological standpoints. Course participants may choose whether the emphasis of their project will be on elaborating on the case study or on the development and evaluation of their prototype; or on a combination of the two. The formation groups of participants with mixed business and IT backgrounds will be highly encouraged to form interdisciplinary groups that develop a convincing Cloud computing business idea along with a prototype solution.

The course is open for enrollment for exchange students and as a single course for practitioners. For enrollment from practitioners, please contact studenthub at CBS or Department of Digitalization (bsp.digi@cbs.dk)

(List may still be altered until course beginning) 

Textbook / Compendium

• Willcocks, L. P., Venters, W., and Whitley, E. A. (2013). Moving to the Cloud Corporation: How to Face the Challenges and Harness the Potential of Cloud Computing. Palgrave Macmillan. (ISBN: 978-1137347466)

Research and Practitioner Articles

• Armbrust, M., Stoica, I., Zaharia, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A. D., et al. 2010. “A View of Cloud Computing,” Communications of the ACM (53:4), p. 50. 
• Benlian, A., Hess, T., and Buxmann, P. 2009. "Drivers of SaaS-Adoption: An empirical study of different application types," Business & Information Systems Engineering (1:5), pp 357-369. 
• Cusumano, M. 2010. “Cloud computing and SaaS as new computing platforms,” Communication of the ACM (53:4), pp. 27–29. 
• Dubey, A., and Wagle, D. 2007. "Delivering Software as a Service," McKinsey Quarterly (6), pp 1-12. 
• Eaton, B., Hallingby, H. C., Nesse, P.-J., Hanseth, O. 2014. “Archieving Payoffs from an Industry Cloud Ecosystem at BankID. MIS Quarterly Executive (13:4), pp. 223-235.
• Gonzalez, N., Miers, C., Redígolo, F., Simplício, M., Carvalho, T., Näslund, M., & Pourzandi, M. (2012). A quantitative analysis of current security concerns and solutions for cloud computing. Journal of Cloud Computing, (1:1), pp. 1-18.
• Iyer, B., and Henderson, J. 2010. “Preparing for the future: understanding the seven capabilities of cloud computing,” MIS Quarterly Executive (9:2), pp. 117–131. 
• Lacity, M. C., and Reynolds, P. (2014). Cloud Services Practices for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. MIS Quarterly Executive, (13:1), pp. 31-44.
• Marston, S., Li, Z., Bandyopadhyay, S., Zhang, J., and Ghalsasi, A. 2011. “Cloud Computing — the Business Perspective,” Decision Support Systems (51:1), pp. 176–189. 
• Ryan, M. D. 2011. “Cloud Computing Privacy Concerns on Our Doorstep,” Communications of the ACM (54:1). 
• Spohrer, J., and Maglio, P. P. (2008). The Emergence of Service Science: Toward Systematic Service In-novations to Accelerate Co‐Creation of Value. Production and operations management, (17:3), pp. 238-246.                 
• Vargo, S. L., and Lusch, R. F. (2008). Service-dominant logic: continuing the evolution. Journal of the Academy of marketing Science, (36:1), pp. 1-10.
• Weissman, C. D., Bobrowski, S., 2009. “The design of the Force.Com multitenant internet application development platform,” In: Proceedings of the 2009 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data. S  IGMOD '09. ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp. 889-896. 
• Winkler, T. J., and Brown, C. V. 2013. "Horizontal Allocation of Decision Rights for On-Premise Applications and Software as a Service," Journal of Management Information Systems (30:3), pp. 13-47. 
• Winkler, T. J., Benlian, A., Piper, M., Hirsch, H. 2014. “Bayer HealthCare Delivers a Dose of reality for Cloud Payoff Mantras in Multinationals,” MIS Quarterly Executive (13:4), pp. 193-208.