Skills Shortage Preventing the Alignment of IT with Business
Skills Shortage Preventing the Alignment of IT with Business
Month Date, 2007: A global survey sponsored by Computer Associates (CA) has found that IT departments around the world attempting to bring IT in line with business goals are being hamstrung by skills shortages and integration concerns.
The survey which targeted 300 CIO’s and IT executives of companies with greater revenue then $US 250 million ($AU 285 million), finding that 53% of respondents globally blame skill shortages as the main hindrance to aligning IT with the business.
“CIO’s are definitely thinking more strategically now, and the business is also asking IT to start delivering services. If you look at different applications it is now the responsibility of IT to manage those customers, businesses were previously able to control relations with customers over the phone or face to face, but now with the internet and other automatic transactions the need for IT is there” Said Simon Barnier, Director of Business Service Management at CA ANZ.
According to Barnier, despite the skills shortage there are things an organisation can do, such as planning strategically and taking the approach of implementing the best possible framework. One of the common models being used for this is the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) which in addition to being quite a tongue twister is also the most commonly used set of practices for managing IT like a business.
Barnier points to Forrester research which predicts the current demand for services and applications which support aligning IT with a business to double in 2008, which predicts ITIL’s demand could soar as high as 70% by 2009.
“To succeed, integration with existing systems, networks and application management solutions, including visualisation of IT mapping to business services, will be core and will assist to deliver the organisation’s goal of aligning IT with the business.” Said Barnier.