Skyrocketing demand for cloud skills

Employers may need to retrain existing staff to cope with these costs and in turn provide progression paths for them to move into the modern era of the as-a-service paradigm.

The continuing uptake of cloud services is having a massive impact on New Zealand businesses.

The latest Potentia Innovation, Digital and Technology (IDT) Quarterly Insights, highlights two key areas – the integration and costs in running these services, and the need to partner with specialised/niche service providers for key strategic capabilities in the ‘as a service’ space.

Nathan Bryant-Taukiri

CIOs are being presented with a plethora of business driven change challenges around how to maximise and utilise resources most economically to deliver the transformation agenda.”Nathan Bryant-Taukiri, Potentia

Another direct result of the uptake in consumption of ‘as-a-service’ offerings is in the nature of vendors organisations are working with.

“Across the board, we are now witnessing increased confidence, especially within enterprise, to utilise specialised/niche service providers for key strategic capabilities,” says Bryant-Taukiri.

For technical staff, he advises keeping technical skills current, and especially aligned to the emerging trends of the market.

“If you do not have the opportunity to apply these skills in your current role, seek to familiarise yourself outside of work hours and take part in hobbyist projects either independently or with like-minded individuals,” says Bryant-Taukiri.

“Deliver something that works and is available for review by prospective employers to showcase a relevant skill set and desire for development,” he says. Opportunities to do this could be with online/offline communities and meetups.

“For those more focused in delivery roles, keep yourself abreast of emerging changes to development processes and tools, especially points-of-view standardised by businesses in the use of continuous integration and deployment tools and processes.”

Agile, SCRUM and MVP may be old hat to some, but the number of companies still transitioning to this thinking in all its various guises is surprising, he says.

Spotlight on the CIO role

Focusing on the CIO role, he says after the significant CIO appointments in the latter half of 2015, “we are now seeing a semblance of stability returning to this space.”

Several high profile restructures across enterprises have resulted in new CIO appointments who are now in the midst of cascading these transitions across the lower tiers, he states.

“We are seeing increased CIO involvement in key hiring decisions, especially where these roles are considered strategic in programme delivery or operational support to maximise system availability.

“CIOs are being presented with a plethora of business-driven change challenges around how to maximise and utilise resources most economically to deliver the transformation agenda.”

Premium skills

In the contractor market, Bryant-Taukiri says Potentia is noticing a heightened awareness of programme governance and business benefits realisation.

“While contract rates remain static in general, we are seeing an increase in rates for specialised domains such as networking security and cybersecurity assignments,” he states.

As more organisations grow their cloud footprint we are noticing a heightened level of activity accessing these services, resulting in increased competition for scarce resources in this specialisation, he says.

Enterprises, meanwhile, should be ready to discuss flexible work hours and remote location employment for prospective employees.

“The desire and necessity for employees to step away from the typical on-site, 8:30-5:30, 40-hour week is becoming more and more prevalent,” notes Bryant-Taukiri. “With this and the above trends in mind, resource planning is critical, particularly with a holistic view on what personnel will cost, how they engage with the business and how swiftly they’ll be able to start.”

Send news tips and comments to divina_paredes@idg.co.nz

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