Cloud adoption continues to soar. In fact, worldwide Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) public cloud services grew by 29.5% in 2017, according to Gartner.
If it’s not in a company’s current plans to utilize cloud technology, it most certainly will be (or should be) in the next couple of years. A recent survey from IDC reveals that only 14.4% of organizations currently see themselves in an “optimized” state of cloud, while in the next two years that number will rise to 42%.1
How does IDC define an “optimized” state of cloud? Organizations who “have broadly implemented a Cloud-native strategy that is proactively managed and is clearly driving business innovation while improving IT operational efficiency.”
Just because you’ve decided cloud is the way forward, or bought and implemented cloud technology because of the promised efficiencies and cost savings, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see an immediate return on investment. Although training isn’t always top of mind when making a cloud investment, it should be.
Make training a part of your cloud strategy
Amazon Web Services (AWS) commissioned IDC to conduct a report to validate the importance of cloud training as it relates to accelerated adoption and shared their findings in the IDC White Paper, “Train to Accelerate Your Cloud Strategy.”2
“We found that training enables organizations to accelerate cloud adoption and achieve their business objectives sooner, as well as overcome concerns related to cloud adoption.”
Professionals taking one or two training courses is always a plus—continuous learning is the only way to keep pace with rapid technological innovation. The IDC White Paper states that organizations that invest in comprehensive training will ultimately see the largest payoff.
How do they define comprehensive training? Comprehensive training includes both cloud fundamentals training for a wide range of stakeholders and deep cloud training for key technical teams.
Comprehensive training shouldn’t be viewed as one group in a one-off training course; it’s a company-wide initiative, involving everyone from executives to IT professionals, who need foundational to advanced-level knowledge and skillsets.
Tiers of cloud knowledge
The full IDC White Paper includes first-hand accounts from executives at organizations like GE and a few different business units in Siemens Building Technology about how they used comprehensive training to reap the benefits associated with cloud. The C-level IT leaders, their direct reports and even professionals beyond the IT department all received foundational cloud education because “everyone needs to understand what cloud services (and tools) exist,” according to Peter Loeffler, head of Innovation and Industry Affairs at Siemens.
It’s true, there are different tiers of cloud knowledge that are needed within an organization. You have some people within the organization who might only need to “dip their toe in” to understand cloud basics, including the benefits and how it impacts their day-to-day role.
Then you have a slew of IT professionals whose roles may transform with the adoption of cloud and they need to re-educate or upskill to meet needs. These skills may include traditional networking skills or even the operational and management skills needed to oversee the changing costs associated with cloud usage.
The last tier includes professionals who are “elbows deep” in the technology, having to learn how to migrate legacy applications, or figure out how to transform all the data collected into something useful and insightful to quicken business decisions. The costs of hiring employees who possess these skills—where the demand is greater than supply—can be way more expensive than the cost of training current employees. Plus, IT professionals are always looking to learn new skills to stay motivated.
Maximize your cloud investment
The IDC White Paper validates comprehensively trained organizations are 81% more likely to advance their cloud adoption in the next 24 months. The advancement and progression of cloud adoption varies based on what stage of the cloud journey you’re facing. To put it in perspective: only 11% of organizations who are currently evaluating the use of cloud and expect to be using cloud for one or two workloads in the next two years will do so with a minimally trained workforce.
The acute need for a specific training course for one individual may well be the current need of your organization, but don’t you want to get the most out of your cloud tech investment? At some point during cloud adoption, you’ll need to address the cloud skills gap in your organization. That’s where Global Knowledge can help. Our comprehensive cloud learning paths are explicitly designed to address the critical skills gap of an entire organization. From the C-level executives and cloud project or team leads to the architects, systems administrators and even the data analysts, the Global Knowledge cloud learning paths recommend a training course for all levels of cloud maturity and job function. They can be used as guides for an overall training program, which our training advisors will walk through with you, your manager or even the learning and development team, to assess the best course of action. We want our customers to be successful. But first, you need the skills to enable that success.
Related courses
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1 IDC Survey Spotlight, Strategic Adoption of Cloud Accelerates into 2020, Doc # US43815218, May 2018
2 IDC White Paper, sponsored by Amazon Web Services, Train to Accelerate Your Cloud Strategy, October 2017
The post How Training Can Enhance Your Cloud Adoption appeared first on Global Knowledge Blog.