As the adoption of cloud progresses, organizations are maturing in leveraging the cloud to transform the way their business operates and the way their customer’s interact. And as they mature, the CIOs are increasingly facing their biggest bottlenecks yet: skills shortage. Here’s how selecting the right partner can help alleviate the problem.
The juggernaut of cloud computing has started to roll at a good pace. The cloud platform is fast becoming the cornerstone of an enterprise’s IT infrastructure. And after the initial trepidation, CIOs have been increasingly been plunging headlong into the cloud realm. But ask any CIO who is well along in his cloud implementation, and he will let you in on the dirty little secret of cloud adoption: the skill drought.
Most CIOs will confess, somewhat ruefully, that the scarcity of cloud skills is taking the wind out of their sails. The cloud ambitions of CIOs ride on the foundation of an alarmingly skewed skill base, as there aren’t enough IT professionals with broad technical competence and working knowledge of cloud platform. Most of the organizations are starved of cloud skills that this new paradigm demands.
The yawning skills gap emerges at a time when almost two-thirds of global enterprises are planning, implementing or moving into the new computing realm. The demand for industry- ready skills in the cloud arena have risen exponentially, but the supply hasn’t kept up with the market demand.
CIOs need cloud-ready skills to help them articulate their cloud computing plans, develop business cases to have the meaningful conversation with their management, determine what and how to move into the cloud, how to manage integration with on-premise systems, along with securing the entire ecosystem, and much more.
It can’t be emphasized enough how important it is to have a cloud competent workforce.
Skill Drought: A Cloud of the Horizon
The ‘cloud-ready’ skill deficit is proving to be a show-stopper for many enterprises as they move infrastructure and applications to the cloud. This is stymying their efforts to keep up with the fundamental shift in IT.
Organizations find it hard to scout cloud engineers and seasoned experts with well-rounded skill sets in the whole range of possibilities of cloud’s native services and tools, and DevOps approach to effectively manage configurations, infrastructure, software deployment, and integration. Businesses also need skilled resources who are well versed in understanding an enterprise’s need for capacities, architecting services across cloud platforms, and understanding how to efficiently run and use cloud services. All this, with a deep appreciation of how to map such services to organizational needs. CIOs fundamentally need to hire resources who can get them to the cloud, and then continue to bolster the infrastructure and flexibility with the cloud capability.
To accomplish this, CIOs need a team of skilled network managers and cloud engineers with hands-on experience. Organizations with cloud ambitions need to hire software architect, security specialist, data center manager, business liaison etc to architect the right solution meeting business needs and mitigate cloud operations risk, and more. Or, find the right partner, with all such skills, to engage with.
Right Partners Are The Right Answer
So how do you keep your IT department stocked with the best cloud skills? The talent pool is shallow. And competition is fierce. CIOs can’t possibly compete with the multi-billion dollar tech titan when hiring cloud talent.
The solution? Select the right partner.
IT leaders can bridge the skill gap by capitalizing on an ecosystem of vendors, partners, and consultants. This fix can help them conceptualize and implement cloud projects efficiently and effectively.
Considering the end-to-end cloud service providers work closely with a huge swathe of clients across verticals, business areas, and economies, their workforce is extensively exposed to varied experience and has access to useful best practices. Moreover, global players bring along international exposure and expertise that can prove highly useful for organizations in creating the world-class ecosystem that is both flexible and scalable to meet the business needs.
Organizations can also look to cloud partners to provide mentoring and support to handle their cloud infrastructure. Partners can bring in a qualified team to help train CIOs’ teams on how to leverage the platforms and make the best use of the ecosystems.
Without having to meddle with the skills shortage, organizations can work closely with the subject matter experts, that the cloud partners offer, to craft a clear and effective cloud strategy and help get CIOs’ teams ready for the adoption with minimal risks throughout the process.
Moreover, with effective cloud partners, CIOs don’t necessarily have to deal with attrition and can enjoy a seamless, continuous access to trained, experienced skill sets and support services staff who are better equipped to find solutions to problems, mitigate challenges, help reduce risks and manage and maintain business-critical cloud ecosystems. And, help CIOs deal with the challenge of skills shortage much more.
By: Nitin Mishra heads the product management and solutions engineering functions at Netmagic Solutions.