The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) reports that more than half of businesses in a research of 250 large enterprises say that they are steering away from the cloud as they do not have the digital skills to make it a success. Summarizing the research, Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF says that having the right skills in the broader workforce is critical for digital transformation. In this research, only 45% of respondents felt that their companies had the right skills required to adapt to digital transformation. Another 15 percent are actively recruiting while 30% of companies have no immediate plans to recruit.
The research underlines the fact that while organizations are acknowledging the power of the cloud, they are not sure that they have the right skills to bring about the transformation. This could be because cloud transformation has layers of complexity to it. Existing systems, information silos, security, compliance and regulatory requirements, internal buy-in and service continuity are some of the key factors which make cloud transformation difficult to execute. Add to this the cost factor, business disruption and unclear advantages and cloud transformation just got blown away.
Digging a bit deeper, it is apparent that along with finding people with the required technical skills to facilitate digital transformation there is the need for an alignment of IT with business needs. While large cloud providers and training organizations are trying to address the need with training courses, there is still an underlying deficiency. To simplify, training programs lean towards particular platforms or sets of technologies. Mostly technical in nature, they don’t encompass the business, security or compliance aspects of digital transformation.
In fact, cloud transformation cannot be generalized. It is unique to every business and needs to relate to its specific requirements. It has to take into consideration various business specific requirements and map these to industry regulations and compliance requirements. It has to consider the existing systems and the viability of migrating these to the cloud. It has to look at the business holistically to formulate the strategy. And of course, there is then the need for technologists to execute the migration and a strong testing team to ensure 100% effectiveness.
Related: What you need to know about Cloud Transformation to exceed customer expectations
Those companies that have followed this process find that their cloud transformation has been a success. Their reliance on outside help to bring about the transformation is one of the key reasons for the success. So even as companies invest time and effort in training their existing IT staff in cloud technologies, they need to look at partners who have specific experience in their industry domains.
Trigent understands unique business requirements, assesses current investments in technology and applications, and helps create roadmaps. Trigent’s engineers are experienced in SOA/web services that allow mash-ups and integrations that permit access from new mobile and/or cloud applications. For applications that can be modernized, Trigent creates a strategy for modernization, such as “lift-and-shift”, complete re-architecture or anything in between. By establishing a phase-wise project plan, reinforced with industry best practices and structured processes, the migration process is sure to be be well planned, executed and supported.
To know more about how to transform your applications to the cloud, visit: Cloud Services
