Prioritising cloud skills: The key to recognising cloud ROI

Just over a decade ago the cloud race began, opening a whole new whole world of digital and technological innovations. However, some 10+ years later, many organisations are still finding their cloud adoption journey difficult. 

Research shows over half of execs say their cloud migrations failed to meet expectations. Why is this happening? Well, it’s telling that 42% of respondents from the same survey cited “lack of cloud skills within their organisation”.

And a recent info brief by IDC shows that the cloud skills gap is real and is becoming an ever-growing blocker for organisations looking to adopt cloud.

Why is there still a problem with cloud skills?

Despite this being a known problem over the past few years, we’re still seeing cloud training and upskilling being deprioritised when planning moves to cloud.

On one hand, it’s easy to understand - your IT estate and your organisation’s value chains are at risk during any Cloud adoption journey. Therefore a lot of emphasis and resources are thrown at ensuring the technology layer is prioritised and delivered smoothly. 

But remember that the underlying key component in any IT transformation programme, is the people. Gartner, IDC, Deloitte, McKinsey - all these great names have pages of research that shows if you invest in training and upskilling, you’re more likely to recognise greater innovation, operational efficiencies, accelerated cloud adoption and greater return on investment.

Research shows if you invest in training and upskilling, you’re more likely to recognise greater innovation, operational efficiencies, accelerated cloud adoption and greater return on investment.

In this blog I’ll explore some of the tangible benefits of Cloud training and upskilling for your business. And I’ll break down how a robust cloud enablement program can significantly turn a positive return on investment early on in your cloud adoption journey.

The impact of training on leadership

A study carried out by the IDC found that organisations who provided comprehensive training (8 hours+) from C-level down, were 80% faster to adopt cloud than those who provided none or minimal cloud training.

Investing in training for your leaders will ensure they understand how to maximise ROI from the organisation’s cloud strategy.

How? They learn to align cloud investments with specific business goals, optimise resource allocation and manage costs effectively. This knowledge enables them to make better decisions, leverage cloud services efficiently, and identify opportunities for innovation and revenue generation. 

With a well-trained leadership team, there’s a better understanding of how to harness the full potential of the cloud. They’ll ensure that every resource invested translates into tangible returns, making the cloud strategy a profitable and strategic asset.

Scaling Cloud With Skills

See how we helped NHS England scale cloud across the National Health Service, with cloud skills at its core.

Read Success Story

Empower your people to be part of the cloud adoption journey. 

With the evolving cloud landscape, collaboration with third-party cloud implementors during the design phase is especially pivotal. Part of this is the transformative impact of cloud training on your employees and the value it will enable them to bring to the table.

Informed decision-making 

Cloud training arms your employees with a clear understanding of cloud tech and best practices. It enables them to actively engage with third-party implementors, ask informed questions, and make decisions aligned with your organisation's objectives.

Effective communication

Training fosters effective communication between your team and third-party implementors. With a shared cloud knowledge base, your employees can articulate requirements, address concerns and collaborate more seamlessly.

Quality Assurance

Trained employees can assess and validate the proposed cloud design, ensuring it meets standards for performance, security and scalability.

Unlock innovation by combining capabilities with company IP

Armed with this knowledge, your employees can explore novel ways to leverage cloud resources to enhance company IP. For instance, they may find innovative ways to optimise company IP delivery, enhance accessibility, or even develop new cloud-based applications to streamline IP-related processes.

Innovation catalyst

Cloud training equips your workforce with a deep understanding of cloud’s potential applications. So, they can explore creative ways to leverage cloud resources for innovation, be it in product development, process improvement or customer experience enhancements. 

Speed to market boost

It also opens the door to leverage cloud services for rapid application development. This accelerates the development cycle, allowing innovative ideas to reach the market faster. Employees will know how to harness cloud for agility, scaling, and ultimately, driving innovation while reducing time-to-market.

Efficiency amplifier

Cloud training emphasises best practices for optimising cloud resources and workflows. Employees learn how to streamline processes, automate tasks and make the most of cloud-based tools, leading to improved operational efficiency and reduced costs.

Collaboration booster

Training often covers collaboration tools and techniques, fostering teamwork and knowledge sharing. This collaborative spirit can spark new ideas and solutions, boosting innovation and efficiency.

Skills Driving Development

See how we helped the AA develop skills and agile processes to create a new data platform.

Read Success Story

Boosting ROI and efficiency with FinOps training

One of the biggest attractions of moving to cloud is the cost benefit. Organisations that are still operating their own data centre can recognise significant savings when shifting from on-prem to the cloud. 

However, while the shift from a CapEx to an OpEx model can bring significant savings and cost optimisation behaviours, it can also spiral out of control quickly if you don’t embed a culture and knowledge of FinOps within your organisation. Especially during the design phase of your cloud adoption.

FinOps isn’t just another certification. It’s a proven practice that helps to drive key organisational behaviours: 

Cost optimisation

FinOps training imparts techniques to monitor and optimise cloud spending. Your employees will learn how to identify cost inefficiencies, implement budgeting strategies and reduce wasteful spending.

Resource efficiency

By understanding cloud cost structures, your team can make informed decisions regarding resource allocation. This results in better utilisation of cloud services and reduced underutilised resources.

Accountability

FinOps training encourages cost ownership and accountability among employees. They become more conscious of their cloud-related actions, helping prevent unnecessary expenses.

ROI focus

With FinOps knowledge, your employees can align cloud usage with business goals, ensuring that every dollar spent contributes to the overall ROI.

Scalable growth

Efficient cloud financial management allows your organisation to scale its cloud usage cost-effectively, driving innovation without compromising profitability.

The secret to getting real value from training

Ok great, you now understand that training is important. So maybe just purchase an enterprise licence for a learning platform and expect a culture of ‘self-study’ to be successful?

Wrong. 

Unfortunately, this is an approach many organisations have adopted following the pandemic. As a result, they’re not reaping the benefits from the quality of instructor-led training. 

In our experience, whether it be in person or virtual, instructor-led training leads to greater certification success and - more importantly - better practical application of skills and training in the real world.

Training doesn’t need to be a huge investment that requires a large upfront expense. With a best practice approach to your cloud enablement, you can start to plan, develop, and deliver the right cloud training roadmaps and plans. You’ll train the right people at the right time, in line with business goals, objectives and available budget. 

For example, at Nordcloud we like to start with our own in-house cloud competency assessment, where we assess each client employee. This provides us with the information needed to prepare tailored individual plans, which can be designed to follow the organisation cloud adoption journey. 

You can see an as-is assessment template here in our Upskilling Playbook.

Upskilling: A Toolkit to Enable Cloud Success

This playbook helps you overcome cloud upskilling hurdles. It’s full of practical advice, case studies, templates and checklists. So, you have a clear roadmap for securing the skills your business needs to drive real value from the cloud.

Download the playbook

This approach ensures that the right people are getting the right training and hands on experience at the right time, maximising your ROI in not only your cloud training investments, but also your cloud journey. 

Get started with a competency assessment

Need a little help getting your cloud skills on the right track? We’re here to help. If you’d like to get started with your own cloud competency assessment, fill in the form below or contact me directly. I’d love to help you and your team.

Or feel free to download our Upskilling Playbook, where there’s an assessment template for you to fill in yourself and understand your gaps and opportunities.