Learn strategies to empower your workforce and harness the true potential of the cloud.

In today's rapidly advancing digital landscape, organizations face a critical challenge: bridging skills gaps to harness technology for sustainable growth. Julian Mulhare, managing director, EMEA at Searce, discusses how integrating talent upskilling with cloud technologies is crucial for building a resilient business.

The pace of technological innovation is not slowing down. Presently, PwC's 2023 Cloud Business Survey estimated that about 86% of UK CEOs are investing in automating processes and systems, while 77% are streaming investment towards advanced technologies such as the cloud and artificial intelligence (AI).

The creation and adoption of modern technologies bring a self-reinforced cycle: as technology improves exponentially, it drives faster innovation and problem-solving. Subsequently, technologies combine, driving further change.

Now, it's accelerating faster than our ability to adapt, causing a large skills gap within the UK, as 82% of UK jobs require digital skills. In turn, 2023 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Agenda reported that 70% of CIOs identified talent shortages as a top concern.

To implement innovative technologies that not only prevent organizational collapse but accelerate growth – without causing chaos for people and processes – businesses must adopt a holistic approach that addresses the skills gap and fosters a culture of adaptability. Executed by transforming businesses' most important asset: their people.

Unlocking Upskilling With the Cloud's True Potential

The cloud is not just a storage unit for company data. Instead, its potential goes beyond basic infrastructure requirements, used to facilitate the adoption of powerful, innovative tools, such as AI, machine learning (ML), and other technologies. As such, businesses are shifting away from the initial phases of cloud migration to transforming business processes. This is where the cloud's true value lies in business scalability, innovation, and cost slashing.

However, the cloud is not autonomous. The success of cloud initiatives hinges on upskilling your people so they can learn and adapt to new ways of working. Changing technologies without a corresponding upskilling in the people and processes will ultimately reduce your ROI. The cloud's value is underpinned by talent development, making it a vital component of any cloud strategy.

Cloud Adaptation: Digital Transformation Blueprint

Successful digital integration strategies require aligning technology, people, and processes to modernize infrastructures. When migrating to the cloud, the CIO plays a pivotal role in developing a detailed plan with clear milestones and timelines.

In the initial phase of transformation, thorough planning and analysis are crucial. Here, IT teams need to collaborate closely with the CFO. Start by outlining the scope of the transformation – this includes the timeframe, budget, and key stakeholder responsibilities. Then, the CIO must conduct a comprehensive analysis of current operations to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Additionally, IT leaders and senior stakeholders need to design the interim and final operational modes carefully. This encompasses specifying desired process changes, accompanying technologies, structures, and roles.

Adaptations should be implemented in a phased approach, starting with pilot projects or smaller initiatives. Here, progress must be monitored to ensure adjustments are made where necessary. Luckily, businesses can partner with a modern technology consultant who can define the strategy for leveraging the cloud, tailored to suit unique business needs.

Organizations can lean on their experience and insights to pinpoint potential risks and challenges associated with the transition by coordinating with a team of technology changemakers. This way, businesses have a hand to hold throughout the transition and ongoing support to identify the resources needed across personnel, technology, and estimated costs.

Talent Buy-in

Technological change will naturally have a significant impact on your workforce's processes and, therefore, company culture. Business leaders must invest in training to support employees impacted by modifications and ensure they understand their new roles and responsibilities in both interim and final modes of operations.

Moving forward, HR teams must provide ongoing support to help employees adapt to the new ways of working, fostering positive attitudes to change. In line with this, building a cloud center of excellence (CCoE) is a strategic move to lead the organization's cloud strategy. Prioritizing talent development within the CCoE creates evangelists, strategists, and a centralized knowledge hub. These roles are vital for defining cloud roadmaps, educating the organization, and providing essential guidance to other teams. Embedding a continuous development culture within the CCoE ensures the workforce stays abreast of evolving cloud technologies and upgrades.

Empowered Cloud Journey

The cloud is a strategic tool for tapping into the opportunity of transformative applications such as Generative AI and ML. To unlock the power of cloud technology, businesses must prioritize investment in upskilling talent's technical expertise alongside their soft skills. This includes critical thinking and problem-solving when working with large language models (LLMs), predicted to enhance technology developers' productivity by approximately 25%.

For a smooth transition to the cloud, IT teams must collaborate with HR and talent development teams to tailor learning paths for individual roles and organizational objectives. This can be facilitated by learning platform partnerships and industry-recognized cloud providers' training programs.

Through continuous investment in talent development, businesses will fortify their capabilities to cultivate an ethos of innovation and adaptability – essential for flexing business agility and setting the way toward sustainable growth within the evolving digital landscape.

Refining

Data is like raw mineral ore. It has little direct value until it is refined. AI is like a refinery. It, too, has little direct value unless it is fed raw material, trained to process it meaningfully, and the processed material sold. Data and AI eventually yield actionable insights that, when acted upon, drive real business value.

As such, data and AI must be embedded in people and processes before they are productive. They are undervalued because the value chain from raw data to actioned insights is not immediate but involves several steps of processing. As the processing is virtual and not physical, cultural unfamiliarity and uncertainty create friction. Few companies have seriously adopted data-driven methods or embedded AI in their processes, so well-known stories of value are far between, which leads to them being overlooked.

Despite these challenges, technologies emerging within the mining industry aimed at facilitating data sharing and collaboration show promise. For example, blockchain technology is being explored as a way to securely and transparently share data across mining supply chains while preserving data integrity and confidentiality. Additionally, industry collaborations and partnerships may help address some of the barriers to data sharing by establishing common standards, protocols, and governance frameworks.

Companies that can effectively leverage their data assets will likely gain significant competitive advantages in areas such as exploration efficiency, operational optimization, safety improvements, and sustainability initiatives.

These diamonds in the rough just need a little cleaning, cutting and polishing to be treasure troves of insights leading to lower costs and higher yields.