With the rapid adoption of hybrid clouds via Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS), the business technology skill sets needed by organizations are changing. According to recent research that Quest commissioned with Forrester Consulting, leaders highly satisfied with the return on investment (ROI) in hybrid cloud environments are adapting their skill sets in a few key areas using three primary approaches.

Confidence is Greatest in Current Security and Business Analyst Skill Sets

Surveyed ROI leaders felt most confident in their current resources in the areas of security and business analyst tasks.

Concurrently (as shown in the graphic below), these two areas were among the top three where leaders believe that they will need to train or hire to meet future needs.

ROI leaders identified several additional skill sets as essential to operating hybrid cloud environments. Rounding out the top 7 skills but in a lower range of about 40 to 45% leader confidence are:

• Designing applications architecture
• Adapting and optimizing business processes
• Developing and modifying applications and integrations
• Monitoring and governing cloud services providers
• Helping and supporting users to resolve issues and answer questions

ROI Leaders Plan to Bolster Skills in Key Areas

We asked ROI leaders which essential hybrid cloud skill sets most require further investments. As you see, the investment list is similar but at lower percentages to the findings for confidence in current staff.

Four “skill set investment” data points caught my interest:

• Applications architecture design made the top 5 for confidence (in the second tier at just over 45%) but did not make the top 5 for investment.
• Business process skills was at a secondary tier in confidence at 45% yet second place in reported investment need at just below 50% investment need, only slightly outpacing needed investment in business analyst skills. Of note, analysts may need to broaden their analyst skills as their business processes incorporate new cloud products.
• Application and integration development is another key investment area. Based on product announcements past and recent, developers should expect to complement their current product-specific skills with newer technologies. For example, for modifying application screens, HTML5 and CSS3 could be useful new skills where used by new cloud-enabled products.
• Monitoring/governing cloud services providers is a specialized skill set that seems to be growing in demand, according to data I have seen from outside of this research project. The top-ROI hybrid cloud leaders are investing in order to optimize uptime, issue time to resolution (TTR), and budget/pricing contract compliance.

Top ROI Leaders Are Pursuing Three Strategies to Fill the Hybrid Cloud Skills Gap

ROI leaders feel most comfortable leveraging internal resources for security and business analysis skill sets and, to a lesser degree, architecture design and business process design. To fill the gaps between what internal resources can do and the needed new hybrid cloud-related skills, ROI leaders are using three approaches to add expertise and availability. Here are the highlights:

• 38% are working with services partners or contractors who bring skills that current resources lack
• 37% are training our internal technology staff on new skills
• 33% are hiring new employees to bring in new skillsIn sum, these are the approaches that ROI leaders are actually doing today and are actively expanding that fill the skills gap.

Learn More, Do More

Among leaders achieving the best ROI, cost is not the top driver for the hybrid cloud approach. Rather, business benefits are the top driver. In my next blog post I will share with you research data showing the business impact that the most successful leaders are achieving with hybrid cloud environments.

Learn more in “Gain Agility While Mitigating Risk Through Hybrid Cloud,” a custom Technology Adoption Profile commissioned by Quest International Users Group with Forrester Consulting. Paid Quest members can access this new Forrester research within Quest’s new “Strategize and Act” Business Technology Content Center on Questdirect.org. What are your thoughts about our research findings? Email your comments and ideas to charles.knapp at questdirect.org.