What Can A Cloud Consultant Bring To My Business?

The UK cloud market is forecast to grow to £59bn by the end of 2024. Since the pandemic, the need for businesses to hire cloud consultants has increased significantly.

Remote and hybrid working is often seen as the new norm and is crucial to attracting and retaining IT professionals. However, these practices often require a decentralised infrastructure which is achieved through the implementation of cloud solutions.

Cloud consultants are crucial to helping businesses take advantage of the ever-evolving and competitive landscape of digitalisation. You don’t want to be left behind. Hiring cloud specialists will give you the expertise you need to identify the best cloud systems and methods of migration for you.

What is the cloud?

Traditionally, companies have used onsite servers and data centres to hold their IT infrastructure and storage. In comparison, the cloud enables everything to be stored online. Without needing physical hardware to access your IT infrastructure and data, you are able to access it anywhere via an internet connection.

Whilst the first public cloud was released in 2002 with Amazon Web Services and had a steady uptake, it wasn’t until the pandemic that its user base rapidly expanded. With the stay-at-home mandate in place in 2020, having onsite data centres no longer made sense to companies if employees worked remotely.

Currently, up to 94% of businesses have incorporated the cloud into their business in some form. Despite the stay-at-home mandate ending, remote working is still incredibly popular. What’s more, businesses have also been impressed by the ease and efficiency the cloud adds to their systems. Over the past 12 months alone, 69% of businesses have accelerated their cloud migration.

What are the benefits of the cloud?

There are many reasons why companies have been swayed by cloud computing solutions. Here are some of the main advantages of the cloud that you could benefit from:

• Your data is decentralised, which reduces the risk of damage or theft of your whole system
• It’s easy to scale storage up or down without having to buy additional hardware
• It’s simpler to create and access back-ups
• It’s highly accessible for any employee with internet access
• Cloud services often include security to protect your company’s systems
• In the event of an emergency or unforeseen circumstances, your use of the cloud will ensure business continuity
• Although there is an initial financial investment, your business will be better off in the long run as there will be no maintenance of costly hardware or data centres
• It’s better for your business’s carbon footprint

What is a cloud consultant?

A cloud consultant can advise, design, implement, migrate, and maintain your cloud applications, processes, and computing systems for your organisation. Their job duties often include software installation and hardware configuration as well as customisation to fit your company’s needs.

Hiring a cloud consultant is often the first step in analysing whether your company should migrate to the cloud. If you decide to migrate to the cloud, a cloud consultant’s role is to find the best method for you. This is usually completed with the aim to be as cost effective and efficient as possible. After this, they will draw up the plans and oversee implementation, accompanying you through the whole process.

Skills and responsibilities

Cloud consultants have extensive technical knowledge of different cloud-based services and will liaise with your stakeholders to identify the most effective method for you.

If you are using a cloud recruitment agency, like VIQU, to hire cloud expertise, these are the skills and responsibilities we would tend to support you in securing in a candidate.

Skills

• Highly technical knowledge and skillset in cloud platforms and computing systems
• High level communication in order to liaise effectively both with your IT team and stakeholders
• Attention to detail to predict any potential issues in the migration process
• Business acumen that gives awareness of the importance of your needs and goals as a business
• Proficiency in project management to design and implement the migration

Responsibilities

• Communicate with your leadership team to explore the benefits of the cloud
• Create an efficient cloud strategy for your business and work with stakeholders to ensure it suits all
• Identify any potential risks or obstacles
• Plan and implement the migration process
• Remain vigilant and find solutions for any issues that arise during implementation

Specialisms within cloud consultancy

A cloud migration consultant and a cloud security consultant are two specialised job roles under the cloud consultancy umbrella. These two roles offer you more extensive expertise in the specific areas of migration and security. Whether you need a cloud consultant generalist or a specialist depends on your business needs and current infrastructure.

Cloud migration consultants specialise in guiding businesses through the migration process. They create strategies for the best migration route, in addition to uploading data and processes to the cloud. After the migration is complete, they will assess the new systems and find ways to optimise them to keep costs down and efficiency high.

Cloud security consultants, on the other hand, specialise in keeping your data and information safe. Cyber attacks unfortunately do take place when you store your data online. Cloud security consultants will investigate potential risks in your system and organise security testing to keep your data and systems protected.

However, if you need one person to oversee and manage the whole process, we recommend hiring a more general cloud consultant.

Why you need a cloud recruitment agency

Cloud consultants are very desirable

Cloud recruitment agencies come in particularly handy when hiring cloud consultants. This is because cloud consultants are often well sought after by companies wanting to take advantage of the latest cloud solutions. Attracting and retaining a great consultant can be difficult. Furthermore, as cloud consultants are integral to important business decisions, getting the wrong hire can have serious consequences for your company and be very costly.

Cloud consultants have particular skills

Cloud consultants (whether cloud migration consultants, cloud security consultants or generalists) need more soft skills than usual IT professionals. They often need a high level of business acumen and business analysis to find you the right cloud solution for your company. They also need to have good communication skills in order to liaise with different levels of management and be able to explain, justify and come up with alternatives to each solution.

We are cloud recruitment specialists

As a cloud recruitment agency and cloud specialists, we can help you find the right hire. We are able to offer you as much support as you need, including but not limited to:

• Helping you to identify whether you need a contractor or permanent employee for the support you require
• Compiling market insights on your competitors so you can attract top talent
• Liaising with your company to create an effective recruitment campaign with clear EVP
• Advertising your cloud consultant vacancy through our extensive networks
• Conducting first stage interviews to fully assess their competencies and skills using our video recording technology to be sent to you to review, saving you time and money from doing it yourself
• Supporting and advising onboarding best practices

Thus, using a cloud recruitment agency can be key to securing you the best professional possible.

Whether you are looking for a generalist or specialist cloud consultant (or you have no idea what you need!), please contact us today and we can help you secure the right hire for your business.