14 The Transformative Innovators Transformative Innovators display the characteristics of the transformational cloud adoption phase (see characteristics on page 15 here). In this phase, firms focus on the long-term objective of becoming a sustainable engine of innovation that powers business transformation. Tactical Strategic Transformational Learn Self-taught, 3rd-party Organized training, Peer learning and sharing, reliance 3rd-party assisted 3rd-party staff aug. only Lead Teams by function, New cross-functional Cross-functional feature heroic project manager cloud team teams, greater autonomy Change is slow and Templates ensure good All change is constant, low Scale risky, ops heavy governance without manual risk and quickly fixed review Secure Fear of public internet, but Central identity, hybrid Trust only the right people, trust in private network network devices, and services Figure 5. The Transformative Innovators in the Cloud Adoption Framework Public cloud offers flexibility and continued rollout of new features compatible with the tech stack, but the key to sustainable innovation is the right talent. Thus, if firms are to retain top tech talent and carve a competitive edge over their peers, they need to appeal to developers by embracing open-source development practices, including sometimes giving code back to open-source projects. Next-generation technologists are keen to work in a collaborative environment where they can benefit from the knowledge and experience of others, both inside and outside the financial services industry. Software development doesn’t have to happen in a vacuum, as long as the firm is able to closely track the use of code and ensure that risks related to cybersecurity and intellectual property are mitigated. Aite Group expects much more progress toward adoption of open source development in the capital markets in the next few years.