| Component | Definition | TOE aspect |
| Relative advantage | The degree to which cloud computing can provide a greater benefit to HEIs | Technology |
| Cost efficiency | Minimising IT costs through spending less on computer hardware and software, reduce staffing costs by reducing the required personnel to maintain data, and save a significant amount of space and energy required to run their IT facilities | Organisation Environment |
| Compatibility | The degree to which CC fits HEIs needs. | Technology |
| Collaboration | The degree of which institutions and their students can implement tools, share x applications and data, synchronise and work on documents simultaneously, and track colleagues and records to acquire real-time updates. In other words, students and faculty can collaborate (work together) and communicate more freely online. | Organisation |
| Scalability, flexibility and mobility | Institutions can increase their business growth without the need to massively change existing IT systems, and the elasticity of the cloud enables institutions not only to implement solutions swiftly, but also increase computer capacity when required and remove them when not required so as to react faster to unanticipated growth in demand. | Technology Environmental |
| Improved business focus, performance and resource management: infrastructure | Institutions can share applications and data on the cloud, thereby enabling staff and management to concentrate on business processes and initiatives in place of the IT. | Organisation |
| Efficiency and agility | The degree of which institutions can gain quick access to IT services they require without having to waste time and money on establishing their own IT infrastructure and capabilities. | Organisation |
| Rapid deployments | HEIs can be provided a quicker and efficient means to develop services and applications, and thus deploying applications is a much faster process as this eliminates users worrying about issues over | Technology |
| Greater availability/reliability | Provision of high-performance and scalable capabilities on-demand, while sustaining greater capital and operational expenditure, and institutions that install applications on high-performance CC | Technology |
| CC adoption | The degree of which HEIs plan to | - |
| HEIs | Higher education intuitions and their role in CC | - |
| HEI size | Number of students in the HEI | - |
| Students | Key users of the cloud in HEIs. | - |