It's time to think beyond cloud adoption and start focusing on cloud maturity
94% of enterprises are overspending on the cloud due to resource issues and a lack of skills
For the past several years, most organisations have made it their priority to shift applications and data from on-premises to the cloud. According to Gartner, more than 70% of companies have already migrated at least some workflows into the public cloud.
While cloud migration is clearly kicking up a gear, organisations are still struggling to ensure that their teams are fully cloud literate. Pluralsight's 2022 State of Cloud report revealed that while 75% of tech leaders say they're building all new products and features in the cloud moving forward, only 8% of technologists have extensive cloud-related skills.
This stat alone shows that simply adopting cloud technologies is not enough to enable your organisation to make the most out of its cloud investments. Businesses must begin searching for ways to move from cloud adoption to cloud maturity - a holistic approach that enables tech teams to become cloud experts while executing on cloud goals.
Cloud computing is already a must-have technology
There are a variety of reasons why cloud computing has been steadily gaining popularity over on-prem solutions, some of the most obvious advantages being flexibility, scalability, and improved speed to market.
Pluralsight's State of Cloud report showed that 75% of organisations are now defaulting to cloud over on-prem.
Investing in cloud computing can also save an organisation manpower by decoupling the cloud software - computing, storage, and network resources - from hardware. That means technologists are not spending time managing hardware like they would with more traditional infrastructure. And this is advantageous for increasing efficiency and productivity in the developer team.
Though most organisations have adopted cloud in some way, very few are actually optimising their cloud spend. 94% of enterprises are overspending on the cloud due to resource issues and a lack of skills to make the most of cloud infrastructure. While many factors contribute to cloud overspend, one of the key drivers is a lack of cloud maturity. Some organisations believe that simply implementing a cloud solution into the business structure is sufficient. Yet, to achieve true cloud transformation, tech leaders need to optimise cloud fluency across all levels of the organisation.
Understanding what it means to be cloud mature
Cloud maturity refers to the extent to which cloud governance and development is optimised within an organisation, allowing for scalability and alignment with business objectives. A focus on cloud maturity is crucial for organisations which have adopted cloud technologies, but do not fully benefit from such technologies to meet their goals.
Cloud maturity can be categorised at five different levels:
- Level 1: No Cloud- Organisations use solely on-prem solutions and have not adopted cloud technologies.
- Level 2: Ad Hoc Cloud- Organisations may be exploring cloud solutions, but have made no meaningful shift towards cloud adoption or governance.
- Level 3: Cloud Default- Businesses have clear cloud governance and a documented approach for cloud operations that they always, or almost always follow.
- Level 4: Cloud Native- Businesses proactively deploy and manage cloud infrastructure that enables improvements in capabilities across the organisation.
- Level 5: Cloud Enabled- Organisations use strategic cloud governance and development to enable core business capabilities, including optimal business continuity and rapid scalability of security.
The State of Cloud report showed that less than half of organisations (48%) rated themselves as having a high level of cloud maturity, falling at levels 4 and 5 on the above scale.
It is key for businesses to understand the importance of cloud maturity and focus on increasing it. To become a cloud mature organisation, businesses must design cloud strategies that improve speed and business value, use containers and serverless technology to optimise for cloud native, and enable hybrid architectures with distributed cloud.
Even though so few technologists feel well-versed in cloud technologies, internal upskilling ranks relatively low on the list of actions taken towards cloud maturity. Only 37% of organisations focus on upskilling their internal workforce in private and public cloud in order to drive organisational cloud maturity.
Human error continues to dominate as the leading cause of cloud security failures, which is a real concern for organisations aiming to become more cloud fluent. Cloud maturity goals must be aligned to tech worker skills development in order to succeed.
Increasing cloud maturity to become more competitive
Organisations cannot become cloud mature overnight. Cloud maturity involves a strategic effort from all levels of the businesses to optimise cloud spend, mitigate cloud-related risks, and upskill workers in cloud technologies.
Organisations that manage to achieve a high level of cloud maturity remain much more competitive than organisations that stop their efforts after adopting cloud technologies. According to McKinsey, Fortune 500 companies could earn more than 1 trillion dollars by 2030 as a result of cloud adoption and optimisation. Cloud maturity directly contributes to an organisation's bottom line.
Deutsche Bank is a great example of an organisation that has worked to achieve cloud maturity. Deutsche Bank recognised that in order to keep up with the future of banking and remain competitive, it needed to become more cloud mature. The organisation started by investing in their technologists, providing them with the resources and training they needed to become cloud fluent and develop the ability to build new solutions in the cloud from the ground up. This focus on upskilling their tech workforce in the cloud helped Deutsche Bank create a pipeline of cloud talent from within, allowing them to bring innovative solutions to the market.
Optimising cloud fluency helps strengthen business infrastructure at scale, allowing organisations to shift focus away from hardware management and towards creating the best products for their customers. However, when cloud maturity is not made a priority, or is neglected, tech workers are not qualified enough to solve security issues, and resources and budgets are not optimised.
The potential rewards for getting cloud strategy right are too high for leaders to ignore. Organisations should not simply migrate existing features or data into the cloud - tech leaders must reshape their business practices by designing cloud strategies and upskilling their workforce to get the most out of their cloud investment.
Drew Firment is vice president of enterprise strategies at Pluralsight