ABSTRACT

Many business and technology organizations see cloud adoption and migrating existing systems to the cloud as an accelerator of digital transformation. The benefits of cloud adoption are perceived as increased scalability and cost reduction. At the same time, there are concerns about whether the information on cloud-based systems is secure and whether the privacy of the data in a cloud environment is at risk. This research brings out the industry’s perspective, both from an end-user perspective as well as IT transformation and IT procurement decision makers of accounting information systems and enterprise resource planning systems in Asia geography, on the preference for cloud-based or on-premise systems, top enablers for cloud adoption and importance of SOC 2® as an assurance for information security and data privacy concerns. The findings of this research indicate that decision-makers for IT transformation and IT procurement prefer cloud-based accounting information systems and enterprise resource planning systems over on-premise systems. Scalability, cost reduction, business agility, business continuity and disaster recovery, and enhanced collaboration are top enablers for cloud adoption. This research also indicates that the SOC 2® report is increasingly seen to address information security and data privacy concerns.

Keywords: SOC 2®; Trust services criteria; Information security; Data privacy; Cloud computing; Accounting Information Systems