Three stories to pull together today.
First, the Wall Street Journal has a piece on corporate cloud spending. It’s rising at double-digit rates. Per some new Gartner data released Tuesday, Companies worldwide this year are expected to spend an estimated $494.7 billion on cloud computing, up 20% from 2021, and such spending is on pace to reach $600 billion by the end of 2022.
Spending on infrastructure-as-a-service—a type of cloud-computing service that provides companies with on-demand computing, storage, and networking resources—is forecast to show the highest growth of any cloud category in 2022, at 31%, Gartner said.
Second, Deloitte released its third annual Chief Strategy Officer Survey. Sure, 84 percent surveyed say advanced technologies such as intelligent automation, predictive analytics, machine learning, and mixed reality will play an increased role as strategic enablers for their businesses. Almost half then said they don’t have the mature skills to do it.
Finally, an opinion piece I spotted from several sources from Forbes. Titled “The SEC Is About To Force CISOs Into America’s Boardrooms,” the core premise is that just as the SEC pushed financial reporting via The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the agency is proposing new rules that would require U.S. public company boardroom disclosure of corporate directors with cybersecurity expertise. The proposed regulations focus on expertise, not by job title, but by the depth of experience, competencies, and formal education on these issues.
There’s a thread of expertise here that’s striking to me. Cloud spend up – because it moves infrastructure spending outside the organization to experts. The SEC is focused on bringing experts into the room to address cyber. And there’s a dearth of advanced technology skills.
Expertise.
Considering a skills enhancement is probably a smart move at both a personal and company level. There’s an opportunity to take advantage of the security and these advanced technologies.