A Strategic Audit on Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise Division
David Mikhayelyan · Lincoln (University of Nebraska) · 2018
This paper analyzes the cloud computing industry and the position of Microsoft Azure. The goal of this paper is to assess the opportunities and strengths Microsoft has in order to evaluate the company's current strategy in the cloud computing market and provide a strategic recommendation on what they can do to improve and establish a more dominant position in the industry. This analysis is based on historical data and reports about the cloud computing industry and the largest actors within; the primary focus being on how Azure can compete with the cloud computing market leader, Amazon Web Services. This paper also includes an analysis on Microsoft’s history and its other offerings to show how Microsoft’s successes in other products and services can be utilized effectively in a strategy for Azure. The conclusion ultimately reached by this paper is that Microsoft should place more emphasis on promoting Azure usage in small businesses and universities to help stimulate the growth of Azure in those market segments. This new strategy should be executed alongside Microsoft continuing its current strategy of promoting Azure usage among its enterprise customers of other Microsoft products.