Rackspace

Is a lack of expertise in Asia Pacific stifling
your investment in cloud computing?

According to new research from The
London School of Economics and Political Science,
the answer is probably yes.

IT is stuck operating, not innovating

IT Pros
IT Decision Makers

The cloud promises improved efficiencies and faster innovation. But it doesn't run itself:

A staggering 64% of IT pros in Asia Pacific spend more time managing their organization's backend operations since adopting cloud, distracting their attention from more impactful activities.

Operation
vs
Optimization

Managing (21%)
Planning (17%)
Optimizing (16%)
Designing (15%)
Assessing (15%)
Migrating (16%)

80% of IT decision makers (ITDMs) polled worldwide say it takes weeks to train new hires.

Organizations struggle to recruit staff with skills in:

Platform Management

54%

Project Management

36%

Cloud Security

35%

Native Cloud App Development

34%

Businesses struggle to keep pace with rapid cloud change

Download the infographic above to learn more.

IT Pros

36% of IT pros in Asia Pacific acknowledge that they struggle to keep up with the expectations of cloud technology.

72% of IT pros in Hong Kong say they would like opportunities to upskill so they can bring greater innovation to the organization.

84% of IT pros in Hong Kong are learning new skills, processes or how to use new tools relating to cloud technology on the job.

IT Decision makers (ITDMS)

58% of ITDMs in Singapore say they can’t keep up with cloud technology’s evolution and demands. 38% of ITDMS in Hong Kong and Australia agree.

4% of ITDMs in Singapore say it is easy to hire cloud experts. In Hong Kong, 0% agree.

62% of ITDMs in Singapore realize that the lack of internal expertise is holding their business back from increasing ROI in cloud services.

Responding to the cloud expertise shortage

To avoid being overtaken by competitors, enterprises must develop a comprehensive strategy to gain efficient access to the cloud talent they need through a combination of hiring in-house talent, skilling up existing employees and partnering with trusted managed cloud service providers.

IT DECISION MAKERS

In-demand cloud skills

What skills are enterprises missing? Through our research, we've identified the cloud skills enterprises find hardest to recruit.

The cloud skills enterprises in Asia Pacific find hardest to recruit

36%

Migration project management

35%

Cloud security

34%

Native cloud app development

The highest paying cloud skills across Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia

68%

Cloud security (Singapore)

64%

Database management
(Hong Kong)

40%

Service management (Australia)

What's holding organizations back?

5 weeks on average to fill an open role
in an IT team

32% of ITDMs said new hires require
'months of training'

7% the average percent of IT budget spent annually
on training new staff

62% of ITDMs in Singapore state Platform management as the most-sought after skill in cloud expertise

Tips on retaining talent based on the responses of IT pros include:

74% Competitive salary increases (Hong Kong)

64% Opportunities for career progression (Singapore)

> 50% Training programs (Hong Kong, Singapore)

Foreseeing the cloud skills of the future

Accessing the right expertise will remain a priority for both ITDMs (53%) and IT pros (48%) over the next five years

Future cloud concerns

53%

of IT decision makers are concerned about the increasing complexity of multi-cloud environments

48%

of IT pros are concerned about understanding how to use new technologies

What do the experts say?

"As IT innovation continues, enterprises will need to develop the means by which they can harness new expertise, and cease to be held prisoner by lack of it."

Carsten Sorensen, Associate Professor of Information Systems and Innovation at LSE

"Cloud technology has changed the way organizations operate for the better, but there is still one key ingredient needed to truly leverage the benefits – human expertise."

John Engates, CTO at Rackspace

"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."

Mariano Mamertino, EMEA Economist at global job site Indeed.

"By leaving the infrastructure layer to the experts, we were able to focus all our IT resources on expanding our software capabilities to provide more opportunities for people to get the transplants they need."

Matt Ronin, Director of Research & Technology at National Kidney Registry

Learn more about the importance of cloud expertise

ABOUT THE REPORT

Rackspace commissioned this research to understand the enterprise cloud expertise gap in more detail and provide guidance to organizations on how to ensure it doesn't hold them back.

Our Methodology

This research report was developed 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 US, UK, 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 use the cloud. All respondents had more than 1,000 employees from both the public and private sectors.

As the leading managed cloud provider, Rackspace has the expertise that many businesses do not have access to internally. Our team of experts can handle the cloud on your behalf, across the world's leading clouds. We architect, migrate, secure and operate your cloud ' and help you optimise for tangible business results.
We're also continually investing in our team of Rackers ' experts in cloud ' to ensure that every business can benefit from their knowledge and not be held back by a lack of cloud expertise. Businesses can hire the expertise of 3,000 specialists around the world, without needing a single extra seat in the office.

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Is a lack of expertise in Asia Pacific stifling your investment in cloud computing?