The research sought to answer three questions: What forces prevent IT operations from embracing modernization? How can companies build high-performance digital operations teams? And how can they recruit or retain elite talent to accelerate digital transformation?

Cloud Adoption Is Widespread — But Far From Complete

According to the survey, nearly 90% of enterprises have at least one quarter of their infrastructure running in the cloud. More than half reported that at least 50% of their systems are cloud-hosted, though fewer than 10% had moved to an entirely cloud-based infrastructure.

Critically, most respondents said their companies had already migrated more than half of their mission-critical workloads to public cloud platforms. The primary drivers for cloud adoption cited in the survey were:

• The ability to release applications more frequently using scalable infrastructure
• Flexible, pay-as-you-go pricing models that reduce upfront capital costs
• Streamlined collaboration across distributed teams

Despite this momentum, the shift to cloud is creating new operational complexity. The report noted that the rapid adoption of public cloud services, combined with cloud-native patterns such as microservices and containers, requires a significant rethinking of traditional IT operations practices. As the survey put it, digital operations teams “will need to build the right skills, knowledge, and capabilities to thrive in a world where the technology infrastructure will be increasingly hybrid and new workloads will be largely invisible.”

DevOps Skills Are Now a Core Business Requirement

The survey identified DevOps competency as one of the most in-demand capabilities in modern IT departments. Practices such as agile planning, configuration management, continuous integration (CI), and automated deployment pipelines are no longer optional — they are foundational to building and running competitive digital services.

The report highlighted that teams with strong DevOps practices tend to achieve faster deployment cycles, more frequent releases, and lower change-failure rates compared with teams operating under traditional IT models. Alongside DevOps, cloud-specific expertise — in roles such as cloud engineer and cloud architect — has become critical for deploying and optimizing highly available, scalable applications.

The survey projected that worldwide public cloud spending would grow from approximately $229 billion in 2019 to around $500 billion by 2023, reflecting how central cloud infrastructure has become to enterprise strategy.

The IT Talent Shortage Is a Major Obstacle

One of the most significant barriers to IT modernization is a well-documented shortage of qualified technology workers. The report cited research from consulting firm Korn Ferry projecting a global technology talent shortage of up to 85 million workers by 2030 — a figure that, if accurate, would represent a serious constraint on digital transformation efforts industry-wide.

The practical impact is already being felt: nearly 95% of survey respondents said it was at least somewhat difficult to recruit the right technology and business talent. IT staff are also expected to manage and modernize obsolete legacy applications while simultaneously supporting new cloud-native initiatives — a tension that stretches already-thin teams further.

In response, many IT leaders are investing in upskilling existing staff through formal training programs, on-the-job learning opportunities, and support for relevant technical certifications. The report also emphasized the importance of setting concrete, measurable goals and performance metrics so that IT departments can demonstrate progress clearly to business stakeholders.

Culture and Leadership Gaps Widen the Expectations Divide

Beyond skills, the survey identified a persistent cultural and expectations gap between what C-suite executives demand from IT and what is realistic given available budgets, staffing, and tooling. Respondents frequently cited budgetary constraints, growing responsibility, and shrinking resources as compounding factors.

The report argued that the most effective IT teams build a culture of collaboration that is explicitly tied to business outcomes — not just system uptime or ticket volume. As the survey stated, these teams “create a culture of collaboration to support the right business outcomes that will create economic value, drive competitive differentiation, and superior performance.”

Specific data points from the survey reinforce how high the bar has been set:

• 64% of IT operations leaders said their core job is to deliver agile, responsive, and resilient infrastructure that supports fast-moving business requirements.
• 51% of IT executives are investing in continuous compliance and governance processes for hybrid environments to improve their organization’s security posture.

With companies now reportedly spending $1.2 trillion annually on digital transformation technologies, IT departments are under increasing pressure to deliver seamless digital experiences that drive customer engagement, revenue growth, and competitive differentiation — expectations that the survey suggests are often unrealistic given current resource levels.

“IT operations teams can no longer be content spending their time and energy on low-level system performance metrics,” the report stated. “The business is counting on the critical contribution of technology infrastructure leaders to deliver new revenue streams, drive faster time-to-market for products and services, and ensure better digital user engagement.”

Varma Kunaparaju, then CEO of OpsRamp, summarized the challenge: “Enterprises want agility, flexibility, control, and the power and promise of the cloud.” Delivering all of that simultaneously — with constrained budgets and a tight talent market — is the defining challenge for IT operations teams today.

Key Takeaways for IT and DevOps Leaders

• Cloud migration is necessary but not sufficient. Moving workloads to the cloud creates new operational complexity that requires new skills and practices, not just new infrastructure.
• DevOps is a business capability, not just a technical practice. Agile delivery, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure automation are now expected baseline competencies.
• Invest in talent development. With the global talent pool under pressure, upskilling existing staff through training and certification programs is a practical and often faster path than external hiring.
• Align IT metrics to business outcomes. Teams that can demonstrate impact on revenue, time-to-market, and customer experience are better positioned to secure budget and executive support.
• Culture matters as much as tooling. Competitive compensation, meaningful work, and a collaborative environment are essential for attracting and retaining skilled IT professionals.

This article is based on findings from the OpsRamp “Adapt or Perish” survey, originally reported by TechRepublic in 2019. The survey covered 250 US-based IT managers at companies with more than 500 employees.