Organizations appear to be prepared to handle the new processes and technology challenges presented by cloud computing, a new survey suggests. The vast majority of IT executives say they’re having no problems finding the skills they need to move forward with cloud engagements, according to an article from Forbes.

The is one of the results of a new survey of 327 CIOs, business executives and other stakeholders, as conducted by Dimensional Research and sponsored by Host Analytics.

More than eight out of 10 CIOs (81 percent) and It managers (81 percent) in the survey say they are “easily able to find employees or contractors” who can help customize Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, the article says.

The appears to validate the public cloud service vision of being able to subscribe to services as needed, leaving the technical details to providers. But the cloud is still in its early stages, and the challenges of moving large, core applications such as enterprise resource planning and financials to more virtualized or cloud settings are still ahead, the article says. The actual coding and underlying systems development work may be once-removed, but there will be a growing need for skilled people who can address configurations, data models and process flows, as it all fits into the enterprise, Forbes reports.

Those organizations adopting private cloud likely have trained and skilled IT departments overseeing the effort, and skills and staffing issues in these environments will likely remain the same as they always have been – not necessarily changed by the move to the cloud, Forbes reports.

IT executives also seems to have different motivations for moving to the cloud than their business counterparts – business executives agree that the purpose of cloud computing is to realize greater value.

IT executives say being better able to meet compliance requirements is cloud’s best advantage, the article notes.

While value was the one priority for business executives (80 percent), it was less so for CIOs (53 percent), who saw compliance requirements (58 percent) as a better reason to move to cloud.