A Systematic Review of Data management Practices in Cloud systems: Challenges and Opportunities for Businesses in Kenya

Abstract

This study reviews how businesses in Kenya manage data in cloud systems, examining the challenges and opportunities they face. The research used the PRISMA methodology to analyze academic literature from 2011 to 2026, drawing on Google Scholar, the ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore. It also considered policy documents from Kenyan regulatory bodies to contextualize the findings. Guided by the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, the review focused on four main areas: cloud adoption and data management, challenges in cloud data management, opportunities for improvement and digital transformation, and regulatory and governance issues. The results show that while Kenyan businesses are adopting cloud computing, they still face cybersecurity risks, limited ICT infrastructure, a shortage of skilled workers, regulatory uncertainty, and concerns about data sovereignty and privacy. The study also found that Kenya’s Data Protection Act (2019) and related ICT policies have had a strong impact on how organizations manage their data.