Factors Influencing the Implementation of a Private Government

Cloud in Saudi Arabia

Amal Alkhlewi, Robert

Walters and Gary B. Wills

Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, U.K.

Keywords: Cloud Computing, Government Cloud, e-Government, Private Cloud.

Abstract: The government of Saudi Arabia is in the process of moving to e-government. This transition is hindered by

the weakness of ICT infrastructure within Saudi government agencies. The development of a private

government cloud is a solution for rapidly improving this infrastructure. An exploratory study is conducted

to identify the factors that affect the implementation of such a private government cloud. An expert review

has confirmed the ten factors suggested from an initial literature review and identified five additional

factors.

1 INTRODUCTION

The use of Information and Communication

Technologies (ICT) by governments to provide more

efficient and effective services is increasing

worldwide (Ndou, 2004). The purpose of

e-government is to provide efficient government

management of and access to information for

citizens, thus enhancing service delivery (UN,

2014).

The different government agencies in Saudi

Arabia are at varying levels of ICT maturity, which

hinders the horizontal and vertical provision of e-

government services (Alghamdi et al., 2014). They

also reported that Saudi Arabia is lacking ICT in

rural areas and there is insufficient integration

among government organisations and their branches.

Cloud computing can be used to help

governments quickly develop and strengthen their

ICT infrastructure (Wyld, 2009); (Khan et al., 2011);

(Tripathi and Parihar, 2011); (Zwattendorfer et al.,

2013). It allows governments to uniformly supply

e-government services, irrespective of the different

maturity levels of different government agencies

(Tripathi and Parihar, 2011).

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 e-Government in Saudi Arabia

Al-Nuaim (2011) notes that, while the Saudi

government has the necessary assets to fund

e-government, implementation is impeded by the

slow growth of government services. Several other

challenges and obstacles have been noted which

hamper the full implementation of e-government in

Saudi Arabia, including infrastructure, cultural and

organisational factors. In her study of how

effectively e-government had been implemented in

Saudi Arabia, Al-Nuaim (2011) found that 8 of 21

(41%) ministries had not yet implemented the main

features of an e-government web site. In addition, 10

ministries (45.4%) were completely or partially in

the first stage (web presence); 3 ministries (13.6%)

were in the second stage (one-way interaction); and

6 ministries had no online service at all. Alfarraj et

al., (2013) noted that the Yesser e-government

programme had changed its vision from offering

electronic services to supporting infrastructure

projects, particularly of government organisations,

citing weakness in the public sector’s infrastructure

as a justification for the change in vision.

Alshehri et al., (2012) noted several “systemic

barriers to e-government in Saudi Arabia, including

IT infrastructural weakness in the government

sector, lack of public knowledge about e-

government, lack of systems that provide security

Alkhlewi A., Walters R. and Wills G..

Factors Inﬂuencing the Implementation of a Private Government Cloud in Saudi Arabia.

DOI: 10.5220/0005528000690072

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Emerging Software as a Service and Analytics (ESaaSA-2015), pages 69-72

ISBN: 978-989-758-110-6

 2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

and privacy of information, and lack of qualified IT

and government service expert personnel.”

2.2 Government Cloud

Government clouds are seen as a new model for

e-government (Liang, 2012); (Hodgkinson, 2012).

Wyld (2009) suggests that the value of cloud

computing has great appeal to governments due to

the dynamic nature of IT demands and the difficult

economic conditions many governments face.

Despite the benefits, there are many challenges

and obstacles to using cloud computing in general,

and to its use in e-government in particular.

Researchers have found that the implementation of

such projects in developing countries is more

difficult than in developed ones (Schuppan, 2009),

and that there are social groups who cannot partake

of the benefits of e-government (Helbig et al., 2009).

3 DISCUSSION

Song et al., (2013) state that changes must be

implemented in order to introduce cloud computing

into an organisation. Yet there has not been any

research to date into what changes need to be made

for the introduction of cloud computing in Saudi

Arabian government agencies to be successful. To

help determine the factors that affect the

implementation of a private government cloud,

government IT experts’ opinions were elicited on

two questions:

RQ1: What are the factors that pose challenges to

the implementation of a private government cloud in

Saudi Arabia?

RQ2: What are the factors affecting the successful

implementation of a private government cloud in

Saudi Arabia?

3.1 Success Factors for Implementation

of a Private Government Cloud

A literature review was conducted to answer the

questions listed above. The review revealed that

several obstacles need to be overcome when

developing a private cloud for intergovernmental

interaction in Saudi Arabia. By identifying these

obstacles, it has been possible to propose ten success

factors for the implementation of a private

government cloud in Saudi Arabia, as shown in

Figure 1.

Figure 1: Success Factors for the Implementation of a

Private Government Cloud in Saudi Arabia.

3.2 Confirming the Factors

An exploratory study was conducted to confirm the

proposed factors with the desk-based study, since

there is no basis framework for a private government

cloud to work with. To facilitate this study, experts

were consulted to review and confirm the proposed

factors. The objectives for this expert review were:

• To review the factors identified in the desk-based

study to enhance the framework (i.e. add, delete

and modify its components)

• To identify additional factors unique to the

culture of Saudi government agencies that have

not been identified previously by the literature.

4 THE EXPLORATORY STUDY

AND ITS RESULTS

The factors proposed were evaluated by

interviewing experts working on IT projects within

Saudi government agencies. Experts were chosen for

interview at this stage since the findings from such a

sample have more credibility than those from a

sample that includes non-experts (Bhattacherjee,

2012).

4.1 Expert Review Design

The review was based on semi-structured interviews

with IT experts from Saudi government agencies.

ESaaSA2015-WorkshoponEmergingSoftwareasaServiceandAnalytics

This research method was chosen because it enables

in-depth discussions and exploration to be

conducted.

A person was considered an expert if they had at

least five years’ experience of working on IT

projects within a Saudi government agency. These

12 IT experts were recruited from different

government and semi-government organisations, and

in different locations around Saudi Arabia. The

interviews were conducted face-to-face, or over the

phone, or online, based on the availability and

location of the expert.

The interviews included both closed and open

questions. The closed questions were concerned with

obtaining the experts’ opinions on the factors in the

proposed framework. Experts were also encouraged

to comment on the proposed factors. The open

questions tried to identify further factors that had not

been recognised in the desk-based study.

4.2 Expert Review Results

The first question asked of the experts was to give

their opinion on the importance of the proposed

factors. The second question, was to identify factors

not mentioned in the study. The remaining questions

were used to identify challenges and barriers to the

implementation of a private government cloud in

Saudi Arabia. The experts’ opinions were analysed

to produce the following results.

4.2.1 Review of Proposed Factors

There was consensus among the respondents that all

the proposed factors were important except for two

anomalies. Expert B did not find Top Management

Support an important factor, stating that ‘Usually

this is not a factor to stop the project’. Expert F did

not consider Reliability and Business Process Re-

Engineering to be important since ‘Privately run

clouds are more efficient than a government

operated setup’ and ‘where IT services are hosted is

not relevant to the actual business processes.’

4.2.2 Additional Factors

One question asked experts ‘What other factors do

you recommend to ensure the successful

implementation of a private G-cloud?’ This question

was intended to identify factors not mentioned in the

proposed framework. The answers are summarised

in Table 1.

4.2.3 Obstacles

Experts were asked to identify challenges to the

implementation of cloud computing. The challenges

identified were used to discover additional factors

not mentioned in the proposed framework. The

answers are also summarised in Table 1.

Table 1: Suggested Factors and Challenges.

Suggested Factors Suggested Challenges



Training for the IT-team

 Data Knowledge and

Quality management

 Business Continuity Plan

 Disaster Recovery Plan

 Communication

 Standards and frameworks

to govern the cloud

services provided

 Documentation

 Standards for information

exchange

 Project management office

 Transparency

 Product limitations

 Data Centre facilities

preparation

 Lack of local skills in

Cloud Computing

 Lack of local training

facilities

 Unrealistic schedules from

management to complete

projects

 Security and Privacy

 Interoperability and

Portability

 Reliability and

Availability

 Legal aspects

 Compatibility with

existing systems

 Training staff

4.2.4 Expert Review Findings

It was clear that the proposed factors were

considered to be unanimously important by the

experts, all but Top Management Support,

Reliability and Business Process Re-Engineering.

One expert each did not consider of the previous

factors to be important. Since the majority of the

results were found to be in agreement with all the

proposed factors, it was not found necessary to

remove these factors.

Five additional factors were discovered by

synthesising the expert’ suggestions. These factors

are: Communication, Standards for information

exchange, Training for IT staff and end-users,

Knowledge management, and Business continuity

and disaster recovery plans. Other factors were

suggested but were rejected, as they were included

as part of the previously proposed factors. The

updated factors are shown in Figure 2.

FactorsInfluencingtheImplementationofaPrivateGovernmentCloudinSaudiArabia

Figure 2: Updated Success Factors for the Implementation

of a Private Government Cloud in Saudi Arabia.

5 CONCLUSION

This paper suggests that the implementation of a

private government cloud will help strengthen the

ICT infrastructure in Saudi government agencies.

This will facilitate the Saudi government’s e-

government initiatives. A qualitative review of the

literature identified ten success factors for the

implementation of a private government cloud in

Saudi Arabia. To confirm these factors an expert

review of twelve IT experts from Saudi government

agencies was conducted. The expert review

confirmed the importance of the proposed ten factors

and identified five additional ones. The next step

will be to use triangulation to validate these factors.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors acknowledge Jubail University College,

an affiliate of the Royal Commission for Jubail &

Yanbu, for funding this research.

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