By Steve Ranger, 11 November 2005 14:05
NEWS
Good technical skills won't be enough for workers who want to hold onto their jobs in IT, as staff need to show off new business skills to attract employers.
Scepticism about the effectiveness of IT, increasing automation and offshoring will lead to the emergence of a new breed of IT professionals who combine technical aptitude, local knowledge, knowledge of industry processes and leadership ability, according to analyst Gartner.
Workers will have to prove they understand the realities of the business, such as industry and customer issues and regulation, as three out of five will have business-facing roles within five years.
Diane Morello, vice president of research at Gartner, said in a statement: "Some will be bolstered, some will be carved up, some will be redistributed and some will be displaced."
By 2010, Gartner predicts that IT departments in midsized and large companies will be 30 per cent smaller than they are in 2005, and IT jobs will be influenced by four major trends. They are:
- Jobs in technology infrastructure and services will decline in end-user organisations but grow in service, hardware and software companies but many of these jobs will be in developing economies.
- Business intelligence, online consumer services and collaboration will grow in user companies, systems integrators and consulting companies.
- There will be opportunities in process design and management in terms of competitive business processes, design of process automation and operational processes.
- Relationship and sourcing management will gain ground, demanding strengths in managing "intangibles" and managing geographically distributed parties with different work outcomes and cultures.
The analyst group said IT workers must focus their skills and expertise to send out a clear value message to potential employers. And employers should develop growth paths and career opportunities for these four domains of expertise.
Morello said: "IT professionals need to act now by assessing and building their business-specific, core process and industry knowledge."
Comments
There are 22 comments. Join the discussion
1. Chris Greenslade
Why does Gartner make such a big show of “discovering” what has been obvious to those of us working in the industry for years? Over the years, the whole profession and methods of Enterprise Architecture have been created in response to these challenges. We don’t need to get rid of the techie – just ensure that their efforts are aligned with the businesses they serve.
2. So Called 'Techie'
More business speak from middle managers..
IT should stay where it belongs, and leave the management to manage their huge salaries..
3. David Quinn
This is the sort of tosh Gartner and the other "think tanks" has been pumping out for years. It is of course nonsense. It would be wonderful if everyone in IT were capable of the sort of omniscience and all round ability that but in reality IT ability, like all human endeavours, is bell shaped. There will be some, every very few, people who can see the big picture. These are the architects. As Chris Greenslade says they are the people who align the rest of the team and point them in the right direction, usually in the teeth of the raging appetite for instant satisfaction from the businesses of today. But even the architects are not omnipotent. They may know the principles of IT and business but have no clue about and no time for developing let alone implementing a system. I have done all the jobs over 30 years and have no illusions about what an individual can achieve.
The trouble is management believes this sort of pandering to their wishful thinking, generally gushed out by babes in arms. This is the cause of half the trouble in the IT industry.
4. john smith
Yes its the end of Techie. Gartner as usual you hit the nail on the head. Sack anyone that even touches a keyboard.
5. John Woods
As a 'techie' who is keenly aware of the business, commercial and customer issues, I am increasingly aware that the failure of many IT projects is largely due to the fact that the 'bizzies' (it's about time they had a derogatory label) know almost nothing about the technology they try to sell, deploy and manage --- and more importantly, they seldom appear to think this lack of knowledge is any problem.
By the time someone like me encounters a project, it has already been overpromised, underspecified, and is usually so firmly stuck in the original inappropriate design that there is no way of fixing it.
Of course I respect business acumen when I see it --- my immediate bosses are a case in point: they can do things like resourcing, planning, selling, and management far better than I could. And they respect the fact that I can do design, analysis and programming better than they can. Further up the tree, however, business people disparage the techies a bit too much. We probably couldn't deliver projects without them --- but they most certainly couldn't deliver them without us.
I'm sure Gartner is right that we need a new breed of techie. But we need a new breed of bizzie, as well.
6. Philip Virgo
So we are back to where it all started with LEO - applying technology to met the needs of the business. And about time too.
My business school thesis (back in 1973) was about the damage that was being done, even then, by systems that met the technical specification but not the business need.
The industry lost its way during the transition from transaction processing mainframes to networks of minis and then micros in the 1980s.
Its subsequent disgraceful behaviour during the run-up to Y2K (expecting users to pay for its failure to predict the inevitable) has earned it the reputation it has today.
I am pleased to say that business methods has always been a mandatory part of IMIS (Institute for the Management of Information Systems) qualifications.
7. Geoff Seel
They make such comments because it gets them in the press and noticed. They're stating something that has a kernel of truth, so you can't really argue although about 50 years ago COBOL was going to do away with the techie. Everybody should keep their skills up to date and understand the business environment but there will still be a demand for those who understand the ins and outs of hardware, software etc.
8. paul broome
Thank you Gartner again for poiinting out the utterly obvious and Tabloiding Techies as not already aligned and aware with the business they are employed in.
Who writes these reports for Gartner - Ricky Gervais?
Who seriously reads them - obviously go ahead firms like Wernham Hogg?
9. Steve Berry
I'm not so sure we actually need a "new breed" of techie, or new "bizzo types".
What we do need fundamentally is just plain good-old fashioned communication/understanding and to concentrate on medium/longer-term business goals with tech being the enabler. Dump the short-termism, dump the "jobs for the boys" environments, allow techs to truly understand the tech they're dealing with. Make the communication between techs/business almost "flat".
Above all, let's just be patient with one another and really try to understand where each party is coming from.
At the very least you'll then start to engender an element of "trust" between biz/techs, where people are less scared about losing their jobs and more concerned with doing the job they're paid for.
10. Glenrick White
Further to John Wood's comment, I believe this is exactly what Gartner is saying, yes you have the technical know how and the "Bizzies" as you call them have the business know how and if you two work together the project is successful. How about if you had his and your know how, or he had his and yours? Maybe then IT will have a voice on the board and projects would be better developed and would be more flexable when they filter down the chain towards implementation
11. Ted Howl
If business managers consulted their techies before deciding on a software
system instead of after , there'd be substantially fewer disasters.
For years business managers have seen techies as an unnecessary cost. They
don't understand exactly what they do so conclude that it isn't necessay.
Gartner's spokesman is pandering to this notion.
IT is nowadays employs far more bureaucrats than techies anyway. Funny how they never get sacked.
12. Noel Cosgrave
Yet another round in the not-so-new sport of bash-the-techie from those seasoned purveyors of FUD, those 'let me borrow your watch to tell you the time' types at Gartner.
It goes without saying that those responsible for the technical implementation of systems need to have a sound understanding of the underlying business needs. That is, what is known in plain-speak, as 'common sense'.
An equally sound case could be made for giving those who live permanently in the world of 'management speak' a good grounding in the reality of specifying, implementing and running of real-world systems.
Having read this article, I am left with one nagging question....
...who on earth pays for this rubbish?
13. Bernard Peek
John Woods hit the nail on the head. But as the next generation of 18 year-olds with 10 years programming experience hit the market things will (I hope) change.
IT will no longer be something that managers need to have done for them (or worse, to them) a lot of the current techie roles will merge with the "bizzie" jobs. So in one sense the pure techie roles will mostly disappear, at least in the USA and UK.
The main effect on the remaining pure techie roles is that wages will drop to third-world rates.
14. anonymous too
ROTFL..... as long as Microsoft continues to "improve" their software, there'll always be a job for a techie. So, it doesn't matter if it's outsource, off-shored or right-sized, some poor tech has to try and work out how to do it.
Of course I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Gartner would be willing to sell a report, and maybe some consultation, on how to remove techies from the business to shave costs.
Ah, what the heck, let's get rid of all techies and let management run the IT department, after all, they know best.
15. Roger Huffadine
JOKE - ha ha ha - A bit like the paperless office then?
16. anonymous
Thank god im tired of using sticky back plastic to build enterprise servers because of "keeping the costs low"
roll on I say but I know they will soon realise that the geeks were of value after all too late we will have hacked the bank accounts and fled to a desolet beach
"Lost"
17. Rich
Articles like this only seem to fuel the belief that people who work in IT have no business skills.
This article demonstrates the prejudicies people have formed against so called Techies.
It would appear more and more we entering a time where management/ business people are increasingly looking for people to blame for bad decisions,.
In general so called business people are becoming less accountable for their own actions. This can be seen is the steady rise of management consultants who are making the decisions for business people
IT seems to be constantly envolving and so are the indivduals working with the technolgy. However, the same cannot be said for the so called person with business skills.It is time the business person to develop their skills and knowledge and not to push all responsibilty or to person working with IT.
I still do not understand what is the purpose of Gartner ; however, it would appear they have employed a group of Y boys to make silly and educated comments.
Rich
18. Stonefoot
As per usual they want the IT people to not only be experts in their own field but in everybody elses as well
19. Sarah George
Although computer technicians need to be more mindful to the business that they support...all the time business and industry make use of desktop computers and printers, they will need, the lowly paid, poorly appriciated and frequently overlooked and belittled, IT technician.
20. Mike
It is a stupid question: Business skills and technical skills are equally important. A business leader with no technical skills is as useless as a techie with no business skills. BUT I didn't see the option "equally important" on your poll.
To be any good at IT, you need to understand how the business you are working for hangs together; then you can provide a system that answers the question the stupid businessman should have asked, rather than the silly question he actually asked!
In the world of ERP, you need to understand the whole business process.
21. Disillusioned Web Technician
I work for a 'bizzie' Manager who, after 6 years at this web/tech company, still knows so very little about the way the web & IT works, what web users want and quite how much us business-minded techies actually do for our pitance of a wage/ uber long hours. I am constantly 'bailing him out' by being made to produce reports for him which, I've no doubt, he then labels as his own work and hands on to his superiors. Clever boy and good work.
I found out the other day he used to work for Big Blue and I am at an absolute loss as to WTF he actually managed to do there... Personally I'd demote him to tea boy, though I'm not sure if he'd even to be able to get that right.
22. David Chassels
TOAs (Task Orientated Applications) are driven by business supported by "techies". Come on it's the 21st centaury and business fundamentals have not changed in 100 years - people and their daily tasks - so why do we have his complex hardcoding or inflexible "black boxes". Express tasks as data link them have rules and state giving compliance and agility - all too simple but it has arrived - so the future will see business analysts build applications but "techies" needed in support for efficent delivery and management of systems. Somewhat disruptive approach but the winner - the customer for a change!