Guest post by Mike Alley, Director of Outsourcing Services
With staffing being over 30% of the average IT budget, it is always under the microscope as companies look for ways to reduce cost. But, there may be a better way to look at it.
In a blog post in early 2011, Dave Cappuccio, Gartner, discusses whether there is a crisis looming in IT staffing or whether it is an opportunity in disguise. He views the skill set requirements of an IT resource as the T in IT. In his analogy, the vertical bar of the T is the technical skill set of a resource. Many times we mistakenly judge the worth of a resource by the depth of this vertical bar. But, in reality, our go-to resources for projects are those that have strong technology-business linkages. This is the cross bar in the T. The broader the linkages, the stronger the resource. The point is the latter resource can potentially impact the business greater and these jobs have lower turnover rate than do jobs that depend solely on a person’s technical skills.
A recent study in MIS Quarterly, and reported on in Computerworld in April 2012, focused on IT investments concluded that spending on projects that create revenue significantly increase profitability more so than just reducing costs. Based on the premise above, this requires IT resources with a broader cross bar in their T than a deeper vertical bar. The face of IT resources is changing.
With alternate delivery models for technical resources such as remote infrastructure management, IT departments are able to have access to cost effective, key technical resources as needed. For example, a company can have access to a tier 3 SAN resource when needed without having to retain such a high level resource on their payroll. Similar statements can be made regarding fully managed cloud services. These resources are the vertical bar of the T. Utilizing these alternate delivery models allows companies to invest in resources that create revenue. These resources are the cross bar of the T.
Is this predicted change in the face of IT Hype or Ripe?
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