Continuous Learning and Growth With Kiratech
Giulio Covassi is the CEO/Founder at Kiratech. Kiratech is adopting Cloud Academy internally for their business and they are growing quickly as one of the top companies in Italy and the EU focused on Cloud Native and DevOps. Cloud Academy sat down with Giulio to talk about what he’s learned about training and retaining people in the cloud space and how he stays ahead of challenges in a constantly changing market.
How did you start Kiratech and what’s your core business today?
Kiratech started up in 2005 as a virtualization company, but after that we accomplished some fundamental milestones, adopting Open Source in 2009, becoming one of the first DevOps supporters in 2012, and becoming the first Docker partner in 2015. Since then, we’ve changed the classic system integrator to a cloud-native solution provider and are proud to be a Silver member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).
You guys have seen cloud and DevOps becoming core investments for small and large companies. How did that happen and what are the trends you’ve seen in your market during the last couple of years?
We started to adopt DevOps methodologies in 2012 and at that time cloud adoption was at the early stage, but it grew quickly thanks to the rise of Kubernetes and containerization technologies. I was at Kubecon recently and now the industry is stronger than ever – Gartner says that by 2025, 95% of enterprises will adopt cloud-native technologies.
Upskilling and reskilling are both mandatory for the whole industry because over the next decade there will be a shortage of skilled workers in IT.
What brought you to consider Cloud Academy for your tech org and what problems are you solving with it?
There were two things: upskilling and reskilling. Both are mandatory for the whole industry because over the next decade there will be a shortage of skilled workers in IT. Growing and farming your talent is important not just to keep up with this challenge but for your employees’ career development and mental health.
Have you had any specific challenges with regard to the skill level of your talent when you need to quickly problem solve with new technology?
Our industry is, by definition, in continuous change, therefore it is absolutely normal to come across new technologies that have just been born and have been newly implemented that you need to know and study in depth. For this reason, it is important to ensure you always have access to continuous training that goes to augment the skills our people already have.
What’s the role of training in your company and how does that align with your strategic goals?
Training plays a key role on two interconnected sides: it is, first of all, a fundamental asset to attract people to work with us in the company, who have the opportunity to acquire new skills both in theory (through specific courses) and in practice. Secondly, a trained, up-to-date and competent team attracts new projects and inspires greater trust in the companies that choose us as partners.
How has training with Cloud Academy impacted your company so far?
Since mid-May 2022, when we started actively using the platform, a total of 350 training hours and 125 laboratory hours have been carried out; and 954 activities have been started, of which 756 have been completed. We currently have at least one training day per month which is scheduled for each person on the team as if it were a project. The newcomer, from the first day of onboarding, gets access to Cloud Academy and is placed in the correct team where the learning path to follow is already defined. So it’s fair to say that everyone at Kiratech gets some Cloud Academy time for career development.
Where do you see your company going in the long run?
The main goal for Kiratech is to become the primary strategic partner for companies in the Italian territory who wish to follow the path towards the adoption of technologies and the Cloud Native approach. We want to be recognized as a cloud-native powerhouse and as such, staying informed of our talents’ technical abilities and how to continually improve is a key strength, thanks to Cloud Academy.
Learn more about Kiratech + Cloud Academy
Check out the Kiratech Case Study interview video below:
