YASTEST
SAN ANTONIO, TX--(Marketwired - September 21,
2017) -
-
Big businesses losing $258
million -- or 5 percent of global revenue -- annually due to lack
of cloud expertise
-
65 percent of IT pros believe
they could be bringing greater innovation to their organization
with the right cloud insight
Large enterprises across the world are losing out
on $258,188,2791 a year
due to a lack of cloud expertise, according to a new report
commissioned by Rackspace® in collaboration with LSE academics. The
study also found that the cloud skills gap is stifling creativity,
with two thirds (65 percent) of IT pros saying they could bring
greater innovation to their organization with the right cloud
insight*.
Nearly three quarters (71 percent) of IT decision
makers report that their organizations have lost revenue due to a
lack of cloud expertise. Beyond innovation and growth, four in ten
(42 percent) IT decision makers believe a lack of skills is causing
a lag in their organization's ability to deploy cloud platforms.
The majority (71 percent) also believe they need to invest more in
their workforce to meet the developmental challenges of cloud
computing.
John Engates, chief technology officer at
Rackspace, said: "While the rise of Artificial Intelligence and
automation may cause some to think that human insight is less
important, our report shows that this is not the case. With
technology and the cloud now underpinning business transformation,
the growing technology skills gap means organizations must have a
strategy to access the expertise needed. Those that don't will
struggle to be competitive and innovative."
The Cost of Cloud
Expertise report looks at the wider implications of the
cloud skills gap and provides a route for businesses to tackle the
realities of modern IT and the resulting skills gap. Consisting of
research amongst 950 IT decision makers and 950 IT pros -- as well
as in-depth conversations with IT leaders -- in large enterprises
around the world, the study uncovers current and future trends in
cloud expertise.
The realities of
modern IT
IT decision makers are seeing the benefits of
moving all or part of their IT estate to the cloud. Around half (48
percent) of respondents say their organization has already seen a
positive return on investment (ROI) on using the cloud, with a
further 39 percent expecting the cloud to deliver positive ROI in
the future.
Despite the benefits, both IT pros and IT decision
makers appear frustrated at not being able to use the cloud to its
full potential:
-
Almost half (44 percent) of IT pros are spending
more time than they expected managing daily cloud operations
-
Around half (49 percent) of IT decision makers
acknowledge that a lack of expertise is holding their business
back
-
The majority (84 percent) of IT pros said that
deeper cloud expertise within their organization would help it
increase the cloud's ROI
Most in-demand
cloud skills
Nearly half of IT decision makers (46 percent)
find it hard to recruit the right talent to help manage their
organization's clouds. Migration project management (36 percent),
cloud security (35 percent) and native cloud app development (34
percent) are the skills IT decision makers find hardest to recruit.
The top barriers to recruitment were:
-
Industry competition (33 percent)
-
The inability to offer a competitive salary (30
percent)
-
The inability to offer sufficient training to
prospective recruits (25 percent)
Looking at what IT pros seek in a new
role may provide some pointers to businesses in the competition for
workers. While salary and benefits are the top priority (71
percent), having the opportunity to progress in the company (49
percent) and training and learning opportunities (35 percent) were
also highly rated, showing that businesses must think broader than
pay rates to secure top talent.
However, with more than two thirds (69 percent) of
IT decision makers looking to increase their organization's cloud
usage in the next five years, and more than half (56 percent)
saying that retaining talent is a concern, the challenges
associated with recruitment are likely to increase. This will only
be heightened with the majority of IT decision makers (80 percent)
saying that it takes "a number of weeks or more" to train new
hires, and nearly a third (32 percent) stating that "months" of
training and on-boarding are required.
Will Venters, assistant professor of information
systems at LSE, said: "Put simply, cloud
technology is a victim of its own success. As the technology has
become ubiquitous among large organizations -- and helped them to
wrestle back control of sprawling physical IT estates -- it has
also opened up a huge number of development and innovation
opportunities. However, to fully realize these opportunities,
organizations need to not only have the right expertise in place
now, but also have a cloud skills development strategy to ensure
they are constantly evolving their IT workforce and training
procedures in parallel with the constantly evolving demands of
cloud. Failure to do so will severely impede the future aspirations
of businesses in an increasingly competitive digital
market."
Navigating the
cloud expertise challenge
As part of the report, Rackspace and the LSE
academics have provided advice on how organizations can navigate
cloud expertise skills gaps in their business:
Splitting the IT function into
separate streams -- Conceptually dividing IT functions
into two parts will allow businesses to focus on the dual
priorities of business-focused digital innovation and operations
focused innovation -- both essential to helping an organization
accelerate in a technologically led market.
Developing a cloud skills
strategy -- Every enterprise IT executive should adopt a
Cloud Skills Strategy, which will map current skills in the
organization, map future innovation trajectories and changes (both
within the business and in cloud), and match these with realistic
market analysis of the available talent pool.
Full assessment of the cloud
ecosystem -- Organizations should adopt an ecosystem
approach to the provision of basic cloud services (for example
pooling risk by relying on providers). As a result, the dual
challenge of both constantly improving and significantly innovating
can be greatly improved by relying on a balanced pool of skills and
competencies both within and beyond the organizational
boundary.
Mariano Mamertino, EMEA economist at global job
site Indeed, commented: "Finding, attracting and retaining tech
talent is critical to business survival, and yet it is increasingly
competitive for companies to find the technical talent they need as
demand surges for such skillsets. Our data shows there is a global
mismatch between the cloud roles advertised versus those being
searched by IT professionals, which could accelerate the growth of
a cloud skills gap. As this new report spotlights, there is both a
financial and innovation gap to be plugged here for businesses
globally."
For additional analysis and insights, please read
the full 2017 Cost of Cloud Expertise
Report: http://go.rackspace.com/costofexpertise.
* This is based on those using
public, private and hybrid cloud
About the research:
This research report was conducted by Rackspace in
collaboration with LSE academics and sponsorship from Intel.
With the support of the independent research house
Vanson Bourne, we conducted 1,900 interviews with respondents from
the UK, U.S., Germany, Benelux, Switzerland, Mexico, Singapore,
Australia and Hong Kong between the months April-May 2017. The
respondent pool comprised of 950 IT decision makers and 950 IT pros
from organizations that used the cloud. All respondent
organizations had more than 1,000 employees from both the public
and private sectors.
A breakdown of the exact demographics is
below:
US = 300 IT decision makers and 300 IT pros
UK = 250 IT decision makers and 250 IT pros
Germany = 100 IT decision makers and 100 IT pros
Benelux = 50 IT decision makers and 50 IT pros
Switzerland = 50 IT decision makers and 50 IT pros
Mexico = 50 IT decision makers and 50 IT pros
Singapore = 50 IT decision makers and 50 IT pros
Australia = 50 IT decision makers and 50 IT pros
Hong Kong = 50 IT decision makers and 50 IT pros
In addition to the survey, a team of LSE academics
conducted extensive research into the current debate within
academia, and the trade press, on cloud computing, process
automation, and digital skills. They also, during June-July 2017,
conducted a series of interviews with eight global enterprises
within the target demographic for the project. A further 10
interviews were conducted by a consulting company. Enterprises were
given the option of anonymity to allow more candid responses.
About Rackspace:
Rackspace, the leading multi-cloud managed services company, helps
businesses tap the power of cloud computing without the complexity
and cost of managing it all on their own. Rackspace engineers
deliver specialized expertise, easy-to-use tools, and Fanatical
Support® for leading technologies including AWS, Google, Microsoft,
OpenStack, Oracle, SAP and VMware. The company serves customers in
150 countries, including more than half of the FORTUNE 100.
Rackspace was named a leader in the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for
Public Cloud Infrastructure Managed Service Providers, Worldwide
and has been honored by Fortune, Forbes, and others as one of the
best companies to work for. Learn more
at www.rackspace.com.
About Intel:
Intel knows the Future of the Cloud because they are
building it. The Intel® Xeon® Scalable platform offers the next
generation foundation for cloud services that can support your
data-intense, latency sensitive workloads with hardware-enabled
security. Intel Xeon Scalable processors offer businesses 1.65x
higher system-level performance over prior generation, and for
growing workloads like Artificial Intelligence, 2.2x performance
over prior generation. From emerging new opportunities in AI and
virtual reality to next-level media and transaction workload
demands, running your cloud on Intel architecture provides the
speed and responsive services you need on a trusted, agile
platform.
1 Calculation:
(Average global revenue of respondent organizations ÷ 100) X
Average percentage of global annual revenue lost due to a lack of
cloud expertise
Calculation in numbers: (5,254,875,750 ÷ 100) x
4.91330891330891 = $258,188,279
Image
Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/9/21/11G145727/Images/2137_Rackspace_Cloud_Expertise_CB-v3-RC-01-010842105a29a72ba6a92ebab67ef486.jpg
CONTACT INFORMATION
Media Contact:
Brandon Brunson
210.312.1357
brandon.brunson@rackspace.com
This
announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf
of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.
The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely
responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the
information contained therein.
Source: Rackspace Hosting via Globenewswire
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