Thiele says he has observed that nightmare scenario play out inside several big financial services companies that he says spent millions of dollars to build their own private clouds only to have them fail completely.

"Without those skills, you'll be wasting your time," warns Thiele. "It'll be like having a Ferrari engine without any Ferrari mechanics around to service it."

How CIOs Should Address the Cloud Computing Skills Shortage

If Grunzweig's experience is any indicator, CIOs will not be able to rely exclusively on professional services firms to take the lead on cloud deployments. A year ago, he couldn't find any consulting firms in his budget with any knowledge of BPOS. Nor could he identify third-parties that could help him do data replication and back-up in his company's private cloud, another project he was pursuing at the time (and continues to pursue).

A year later, Grunzweig says he has a handful of consulting companies in the Los Angeles area that he can call who have a better understanding of how to back-up data in his company's private cloud. But, he is quick to add, "there is still a void of information."