User-Designed Software as a Service - Can Conceptual Work be Shifted to the End-User

Cloud Computing and especially Software as a Service (SaaS) is predicted to bring about the next information technology (IT) revolution. Benefits and risks have been discussed extensively in both research and practice. Key benefits like higher flexibility and lower costs are confronted with major risks such as loss of data control. These benefits and risks are predominantly discussed in the context of traditional SaaS. Here, the administrator configures and maintains the application. In contrast, new SaaS concepts allow shifting conceptual work to end-users by enabling them to adjust standard SaaS software independently from their IT department. Using an action research approach, we investigated the benefits and risks of this so called user-designed SaaS, and compared them to those of traditional, administrator-designed SaaS. Many benefits and risks still apply to user-designed SaaS, but also so far unknown benefits like higher user acceptance and lower dependency to administrators, as well as new risks like shifting conceptual skills to the end-user were observed.