Companies that are moving to the cloud require talented people who understand the technology and the new processes that accompany that change. In a lot of cases, a company will seek to retain their existing workforce and focus on re-tooling them to be successful on their cloud journey. This process is advantageous for many reasons, the main one of which is the fact that all of the institutional knowledge that these individuals possess stays within the company. Business processes and approaches will often be similar as workloads are moved to the cloud, so having a long-term background in why certain decisions were made during a legacy workload implementation is critical to making sure that it is designed correctly as it is moved to the cloud.

In addition to retention, the attraction of external talent will be important for the long-term success of the cloud journey. There are significant benefits associated with hiring cloud computing experts that will help realign the company to think beyond the limitations that were faced in their data centers. This external talent is not just technical, and business professionals who understand the challenges associated with this change, and can help navigate companies through this journey, have very important roles. The global battle for top-tier cloud talent is already high and demand will only increase as more and more companies begin their journey. This is a critical area that must be part of the decision-making process for any company making the move to the cloud.