95% of Irish firms struggle with hybrid IT skill shortages

The modernisation of IT structures is leaving a huge majority of large Irish companies in a muddle, with 95% experiencing skills shortages, new research indicates.

Companies are struggling with hybrid IT systems as they move from in-house legacy solutions to cloud-based technology.

This modernisation is creating a headache for business leaders who find their staff are lacking the requisite skills to manage such systems.

The research carried out by Sunguard AS questioned 100 senior IT decision makers in Irish organisations with more than 500 employees and an average IT spend of around €2.7m a year.

Despite the difficulties making such a move poses, Sunguard’s Keith Tilley says most organisations see this period as one of necessary pain to maintain competitiveness and deliver long-term benefits.

“Investment in hybrid IT is a critical part of any modern enterprise’s journey towards cloud computing.

What will the shape of #IT look like in 2016? @wadealt talks 5 trends to drive strategic change: https://t.co/9nefc1FT4u

— Sungard AS (11:11 Systems) (@SungardAS) December 22, 2015

"While it offers a stepping stone towards a longer term IT strategy, it should not be dismissed as a stop-gap or temporary fix.

"Legacy applications make hybrid IT a necessary transition in the adoption of cloud services.”

“It is heartening that organisations can see the value of hybrid IT but at the same time it is very worrying that just less than half of organisations feel the complexity is too much for their IT teams,” Mr Tilley said.

The biggest fear firms harbour is that the skills gap in their organisations could expose them to cyber attacks.

IT security ranked top of the list in terms of businesses’ concerns, with 34% citing it as the most problematic area.

Organisations’ ability to integrate private cloud systems into their IT estate was foremost in the minds of almost a fifth of business leaders’ minds.

This figure rose to over a quarter when dealing with public cloud technology.

The complexity associated with integrating new IT solutions is likely to grow rather than lessen, according to London-based TDA Capital’s chief information officer, Badreddine Laroussi.

“As time goes on, it will only continue to get more complex because we’re buying technology for everything.”