Staffing Challenges
As IT talent retires and skilled resources grow scarce, CloudFirst helps businesses stay operational by modernising outdated systems, automating critical tasks and providing 24/7 expert support. Reduce reliance on hard-to-find legacy expertise and future-proof your infrastructure with scalable, intelligent solutions.
Supported Platforms:
Key Statistics
Talent shortages and legacy skill gaps are more than HR headaches — they’re preventable business risks. The stats below illustrate how staffing issues are fuelling the shift towards managed services and modern platforms.
70%
Technology leaders report difficulty hiring skilled legacy system specialists.
1 in 5
IT teams say burnout is driven by manual workflows and outdated tools.
67+ Years old
Over 27,000 IBM i specialists are aged 67 years or older!
Client Challenges & Benefits
Shrinking Talent Pool
The Challenge
As legacy system experts retire, it’s increasingly difficult to find skilled professionals to maintain and support ageing infrastructure.
The Business Benefit
CloudFirst bridges the talent gap by investing in multi-platform training and career development. Our expert teams bring modern skills and certified legacy knowledge, ensuring reliable system management without staffing strain.
Employee Retention
The Challenge
Many IT professionals prefer working with modern technologies to keep their skills relevant. This leads to frustration and higher turnover rates when stuck managing outdated systems.
Employees nearing retirement may advise against major IT change programmes to reduce their workload.
The Business Benefit
CloudFirst leverages AI-driven tools that simplify cross-platform management, reducing complexity and making legacy environments more accessible, keeping our IT talent engaged and productive.
In addition, we provide in-depth certified technical training to ensure our team are fully skilled to manage our customer environments.
Knowledge Gaps
The Challenge
Training new employees on outdated, undocumented systems is time-consuming and pulls focus from strategic IT initiatives.
This can lead to engaging expensive contract staff with specific legacy experience.
The Business Benefit
CloudFirst automates routine tasks through modern cloud solutions and has certified experts on hand 24/7. This enables your IT teams to focus on innovation, transformation and high-value projects.
High Dependency on External Experts
Challenge
Organisations are forced to rely on a shrinking pool of expensive external resources to address complex legacy system issues.
Often, external resources make recommendations that suit their skill set to ensure they are retained.
The Business Benefit
CloudFirst reduces your reliance on external experts by transitioning you to a fully managed cloud platform. Our expert team will provide a consistent level of support 24/7.
CloudFirst will give you clear advice based on your requirements and not technology or vendor-biased solutions.
Business Benefits
Don’t let talent gaps slow innovation. CloudFirst actively develops the next generation of IT experts through ongoing training and certification programmes. Our customers gain the confidence to modernise legacy systems by transitioning to our secure, fully managed cloud platform, backed by 24/7 support and future-ready expertise.
Streamlined Operations
Shifting to CloudFirst’s multi-tenant cloud platform reduces IT overhead, freeing your team to focus on innovation and high-impact business initiatives instead of routine maintenance.
Cost Savings
CloudFirst’s managed services simplify IT operations, reducing overhead and eliminating the expense of ongoing hardware upgrades, delivering long-term savings and predictable budgeting.
Operational Resilience
Reduce your board-level risk exposure to revenue loss from lack of support during non-core working hours.
What our
clients say
‘We were looking for a low-cost, scalable storage option that offered full support for our cloud-hosting needs. CloudFirst Managed Cloud Hosting proved the perfect solution for our needs, thanks to the bright, knowledgeable people at CloudFirst.’
— Bill Ortiz, JS Stile International
‘In the food and beverage industry, system downtime means production delays and lost revenue. CloudFirst’s Systems Management has been a game changer — from 24/7 monitoring to proactive maintenance, they keep our IBM i environment running smoothly without draining internal resources. It’s expert support we can rely on, day or night.’
— Director of IT, National Food & Beverage Manufacturer
‘CloudFirst’s Protection Suite didn’t just reduce our risk — it transformed how we manage business continuity. With built-in ransomware defence, real-time recovery, and daily DR testing, we finally have the resilience our IBM systems demand.’
— Director of IT Infrastructure, Global Manufacturing Firm
Talent shortages shouldn’t halt progress.
The path forward lies in simplicity, automation and intelligent support.