Determinants of Software as a Service (SaaS) Adoption By Nairobi Securities Exchange Listed Companies

Software as a Services (SaaS) is a revolutionary licensing and distribution model used to deliver software applications over the Internet. It is a compelling value proposition for customers who are keen to avoid tying high capital expenditure that characterizes implementation of on-premise business applications, as it presents customers with the option of pay-as-you-go operating expenditure model as opposed to large upfront capital expenditure. Despite the economics and other adoption facilitators of SaaS, the uptake continues to face an almost similar number of adoption inhibitors. The study sought to investigate the relationships between SaaS Adoption Facilitators and SaaS Adoption Inhibitors on the one hand and SaaS Adoption by Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) listed companies on the other. It also sought to establish the SaaS Adoption Psychographic Profiles of NSE listed companies and the relationship with SaaS Adoption, that exist. Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) Theory and modified Technology, Organization and Environment (TOE) Framework were used as baseline theoretical frameworks to undertake the study. The study adopted a census approach given the relatively small number of NSE listed companies, to eliminate any element of chance and obtain the highest accuracy. An Internet-mediated questionnaire was administered to the IT leadership of these companies via SurveyMonkey and data obtained was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics, to test significant relationships between the independent variables and the dependent variable. Using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (Spearman’s rho) to assess relationships between independent variables and the dependent variable, the study found that all the SaaS Adoption Facilitators had moderately positive to very strong positive relationships with SaaS Adoption, all the SaaS Adoption Inhibitors had weak negative relationships with SaaS Adoption, with the exception of Integration Challenges which had a moderately negative relationship with SaaS Adoption. The SaaS Adoption Psychographic Profiles established had a moderately positive relationship with SaaS Adoption. Of the SaaS Adoption Psychographic Profiles established, not a single Laggard was found in the population.

Key words:  Software as a Service, SaaS Adoption Facilitators, SaaS Adoption Inhibitors, SaaS Adoption Psychographic Profiles, Diffusion of Innovations.