A recent study revealed that the majority of CIOs still lack adequate skills and understanding about the cloud.

The study, originally developed by EquaTerra in 2004 and currently performed by KPMG Sourcing Advisory, provides current insights about shared services, outsourcing and third-party business and IT services.  Respondents of the study are cloud service providers and IT advisors, which rated their enterprise customer IT executives’ knowledge about cloud computing aspects on the scale of one to five. One stood for “very unskilled” and five represented “very skilled”.

The highest rating that IT executives earned from advisors was about “Understanding the technical underpinnings of cloud computing – how it works,” at 2.39 average rating. On the other hand, the highest rating given by service providers was 2.81 for “Understanding how cloud computing options can complement or supplant traditional enterprise systems and/or outsourcing investments.” Both advisors and service providers gave the least rating for “Managing and governing cloud initiatives and engagements.”

Even IT executive received low ratings, service providers are optimistic that trends of availing for cloud-based solutions will continue to rise. The study revealed that 74% among service providers expect customer demand for business and IT services will increase in the next two quarters. Most of the demand would come from banking and financial institutions.

Service Angle

Cloud computing developments have risen so fast these days which kept IT executives from catching up. Stan Lepeak, director of KPMG Sourcing Advisory Global Research, wasn’t surprised by the results. He viewed that cloud services are geared for long-term opportunities and it would take a clear business case to establish the substantial benefits of cloud-based services.

“It’s not so much that buyers are not skilled at cloud computing capabilities,” says Lepeak, according to PC World. “But that they have not had much real-world practice at utilizing them, or that there is not enough relevant, real-world data available from providers to do meaningful business case assessments.”

It is expected that cloud education should pick up soon, which would equip IT executive with cloud skills and expertise to fully realize the benefits of the cloud.