Umbrella company IT contractors must embrace the cloud if they want to remain in demand, according to analysts Gartner.
As cloud services become ever more popular, IT departments run the risk of becoming largely defunct if they do not become involved in the new technology. Gartner suggests that IT departments could act as cloud brokers, playing the intermediary as their company adopts cloud systems.
IT bosses should establish a purchasing system that allows for cloud adoption and encourages different departments within the business to approach the IT gurus when they need advice and support. This could be done reasonably easily if existing processes are modified.
According to Gartner, the concept of cloud services brokerage attracted increased interest last year and is bound to accelerate in the next few years as more businesses take to the cloud.
David Mitchell Smith, Gartner’s research VP, explained that trends and technologies are continually evolving and people are getting confused about the cloud concept. End users need to think about more than just migrating their current workloads to cloud systems; they also have to begin developing applications that can be used in the new online environments.
Most organisations just think about migrating workloads but if they want to leverage the full power of the cloud, they will need to design applications with the unique opportunities, characteristics and limitations of the cloud in mind.
There will always be a role for IT contractors in business. The cloud is not going to take that away. But in order to succeed, contractors will have to make sure their skills evolve to match the technological advances that are going on around them.
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