MANAGING INFORMATION SYSTEM Assessing The Role of IT in Generating Competitive Advantage The Case Study of Fidor Group, Germany Student ID:

Table of Contents
Executive Summary1
Introduction2
Analysis3
1/ The Deployment Model - Hybrid Cloud Computing at Fidor3
2/ The Service Model – Infrastructure as a Service4
3/ The Service Model – Platform as a Service5
4/ The Service Model – Software as a Service5
5/ The Achievement of Competitive Advantage6
Conclusion7
References9

Executive Summary: In less than a decade the role of cloud computing has evolved from merely a tool in the general IT system to a catalyst contributing significantly to the transformation in enterprise’s strategic thinking and strategic position of CIO (Wladawsky-Berge 2015). Cloud computing can be explained as the reposition of computing services to the Internet, thus customers can access such services from anywhere, at anytime of convenience. Salesforce UK (2015) summarises ten major benefits of cloud computing, most notably its advantage in flexibility, free capital expenditure and increased collaboration. Particularly in the case of Fidor Group, cloud computing has caved a unique path to create the first network-based strategy in a financial service provider (Bird 2014). To illustrate the massive potential of cloud computing this report will carry out an analysis in the Fidor Group.

I. Introduction: The Fidor Group consists of two main entities, with Fidor Bank being the primary financial service provider and Fidor Tecs acting as the technical supporter for the technology running the Bank. The company has its foundation in the operating system designed by the Fidor Tecs team back in 2007, called “fidorOS”. The system was established on top of local banking systems, deploying the standard APIs infrastructure to enable integration with trusted external partners. It was