Communication Solutions

Business growth in a variety of sectors is being threatened as a result of a new shortage of skills and talent in IT and business. According to recent Gartner (News - Alert) research, traditional technical IT skills will not suit the burgeoning demand for developing IT and business together.

 

“What constitutes ‘qualified people’ will change. The intersection of business models and IT requires people with varied experience, professional versatility, multidiscipline knowledge and technology understanding -- a hybrid professional, in other words,” said Diane Morello, vice president and Gartner Fellow.

 

Andy Kyte, vice president and Gartner Fellow added that there are simply not enough such people available. “This is a massive and devastating skills shortage, and it is coming when there is a surge in the number of projects that are required from IT.”

 

Several forces are driving demand for people with talent in both IT and business. Gartner has found that most large companies are involved in various transformation programs and IT is considered key to transformation.

 

Gartner has also discovered unprecedented levels of coordination between IT and the business to meet the challenges of globalization, focus on customers, innovation, extended value chains and brand mastery.

 

Businesses are also being compelled to modernize and consolidate their legacy IT applications, systems and platforms, often due to the fact that they cannot find adequate people with the skills to maintain them.

 

There is a significant change underway with IT-driven businesses and increasing concern with the differentiation through customizes applications that intensify the complexity, while also creating the legacy assets of tomorrow.

 

Specific challenges exist domestically as Baby Boomers are nearing retirement, younger generations view IT as an unattractive career choice, especially when it involves a help desk or contact center situation.

 

The same cannot be said for students in developing countries. In China, universities graduate roughly 500,000 IT and high-tech students every year.

“I keep meeting CIOs who say they will be running resource-constrained projects in 2008,” said Mr Kyte. “The constraint is not from the budget but from the lack of the right people.”

 

This shortage in skilled individuals is one of the obvious reasons that so many companies are turning to offshore contact center options. Too often, individuals within the states view the work as menial or the pay too low. Or, the organization cannot find adequately educated or skilled individuals to staff the contact center and they must therefore look elsewhere.

 

Just as technology keeps moving, so will these trends. For better or for worse, they will continue to change and continue on a path of growth or continual shortage. Either way, organizations must be able to support their initiatives and serve the customer, no matter what the end strategy.