Public cloud provider Skytap Inc. says many enterprises are choosing the most difficult and arduous path to migrate their most critical, legacy applications to the cloud. As a result, many of these organizations are making a meal of things, creating more challenges around technical complexity and recruitment as they do so.

These are the main findings of a survey of 450 C-level and vice president/director-level technology leaders in the U.S., U.K. and Canada carried out by 451 Research Inc. and commissioned by Skytap. The study, released today, found there’s a big appetite for moving to the cloud, though many are trying to decide how to do so.

451 Research found that 74 percent of executives and technology leaders are still running at least half of their business applications in on-premises environments, though 67 percent are planning to move many of these apps to the cloud within the next 12 to 24 months. Respondents cite clear benefits in doing so, including greater competitiveness and better customer responsiveness.

The challenge for these companies is that many of these on-premises apps include things such as customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning and data analytics software, which are the “least suited” for hyperscale clouds. These businesses also report a lack of skills when it comes to managing these applications and delivering new features.

The answer, of course, is to move those apps to the cloud, but many enterprises are choosing the most difficult path forward, rewriting those apps from scratch so they can run in a new environment without problems. In turn, that’s leading to recruitment challenges as these companies struggle to attract the developers they need to achieve this.

“Enterprises are motivated to leverage cloud to modernize, and clearly understand the benefits,” Jay Lyman, senior analyst at 451 Research, said in a statement. “However, the sheer mass and complexity of on-premises application portfolios, combined with a propensity to choose the most arduous path to cloud, is creating a painful skills challenge that may require a more patient, progressive approach to find relief.”

The study’s findings come with a caveat, as they’re obviously favorable to Skytap. The company specializes in providing cloud infrastructure that mirrors on-premises environments in order to ease application migrations. It also provides management tools to help organizations manage these workloads after they’ve shifted to the cloud.

“Our study cuts through rhetoric to show that while most tech leaders correctly see cloud as an agility play, hyperscale clouds aren’t delivering that benefit for traditional applications,” said Skytap Chief Technology Officer Brad Schick. “We want to help drive conversation that gives enterprises clear choices to manage change, easily identify the right cloud venue for existing applications, and iteratively modernize without burning everything down.”

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