Tag: Skills Gap

In the rush towards digital transformation, individual lines of business in organisations, have built up collections of unconnected systems, each generating a diversity of data. While these systems are suitable for rapidly launching services and are aimed at solving individual challenges, digital enterprises will need to take a platform approach to unlock the full value of the data they generate.

Data-driven enterprises can increase revenue and shift to higher margin offerings through personalisation tools, such as recommendation engines and dynamic pricing. Cost cutting can be achieved with predictive maintenance that relies on streaming sensor data integrated with external data sources. Increasingly, advanced organisations will monetise their integrated data by providing insights as a service.

Digital enterprises face new challenges – growing complexity, data explosion, and skills gap.

Here are 5 ways in which IT teams can mitigate these challenges.

1. Data & AI projects must focus on data access. When the organisation can unify data and transmit it securely wherever it needs to, it will be ready to begin developing applications that utilise machine learning, deep learning, and AI.
2. Transformation requires a hybrid cloud platform. Hybrid cloud provides the ability to place each workload in an environment that makes the most sense for the business, while still reaping the benefits of a unified platform.
3. Application modernisation unlocks future value. The importance of delivering better experiences to internal and external stakeholders has not gone down; new experiences need modern applications.
4. Data management needs to be unified and automated. Digital transformation initiatives result in ever-expanding technology estates and growing volumes of data that cannot be managed with manual processes.
5. Cyber strategy should be Zero Trust – backed by the right technologies. Organisations have to build Digital Trust with privacy, protection, and compliance at the core. The Zero Trust strategy should be backed by automated identity governance, robust access and management policies, and least privilege.

Read below to find out more.

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In recent years, businesses have faced significant disruptions. Organisations are challenged on multiple fronts – such as the continuing supply chain disruptions; an ongoing energy crisis that has led to a strong focus on sustainability; economic uncertainty; skills shortage; and increased competition from digitally native businesses. The challenge today is to build intelligent, data-driven, and agile businesses that can respond to the many changes that lie ahead.

Leading organisations are evaluating ways to empower the entire business with data, machine learning, automation, and AI to build agile, innovative, and customer-focused businesses. 

Here are 7 steps that will help you deliver business value with data and AI:

• Understand the problems that need solutions. Before an organisation sets out on its data, automation, and AI journey, it is important to evaluate what it wants to achieve. This requires an engagement with the Tech/Data Teams to discuss the challenges it is trying to resolve.
• Map out a data strategy framework. Perhaps the most important part of this strategy are the data governance principles – or a new automated governance to enforce policies and rules automatically and consistently across data on any cloud.
• Industrialise data management & AI technologies. The cumulation of many smart, data-driven initiatives will ultimately see the need for a unified enterprise approach to data management, AI, and automation.
• Recognise the skills gap – and start closing it today. There is a real skills gap when it comes to the ability to identify and solve data-centric issues. Many businesses today turn to technology and business consultants and system integrators to help them solve the skills challenge.
• Re-start the data journey with a pilot. Real-world pilots help generate data and insights to build a business case to scale capabilities.
• Automate the outcomes. Modern applications have made it easier to automate actions based on insights. APIs let systems integrate with each other, share data, and trigger processes; and RPA helps businesses automate across applications and platforms.
• Learn and improve. Intelligent automation tools and adaptive AI/machine learning solutions exist today. What organisations need to do is to apply the learnings for continuous improvements.

Find more insights below.

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As the world has had to cope with a scenario never seen before in modern times, technology has been at the forefront of the response. This means hardware – computers, servers and the like – flew off the shelves. Cloud infrastructure and migration have been top of mind. “Digital Transformation” and the adoption of digital tools is expanding like a house on fire! We found that over 3 in 4 companies accelerated their digital plans in some way. Another 20% put plans on hold, largely because they felt the need to evaluate the old plans which became inadequate.

As vendors, channel partners and organisations scramble to put their new digital houses together and build the best digital castles possible, there is a major talent crunch. There are few who can deeply understand customer needs and recommend the right solution. While this affects all parties, the channel partners are feeling this more acutely. In my recent conversations with channel partners, it became evident that they are facing difficulties in finding and retaining good Sales and Solutions talent. There have also been complaints about talent being poached by the tech vendors they partner with!

The standard response to this problem is vendor certification and training. However, this is inadequate, due to three main reasons.

The Pace of Technological Change

The latest technology and what is possible with it changes on almost a daily basis. In this environment, for a person to keep up with everything is almost impossible. The ways in which a specific technology can be applied and the solutions it can deliver change, based on the ecosystem that forms around the technology and with the improvements in capability with time.

Small changes in different applications can cascade to create a solution (in terms of meeting a user need) which was not possible a short time ago. This may then compete with a completely different technology that has been considered satisfactory till date for the same user need. If the new option performs better, the old option is gone before you can snap your fingers.

For a salesperson to be across all this requires a solid understanding of the industry and its environment at a conceptual level. Given the pace of change, such people have become increasingly rare. They can be trained on a specific technology, not on perspectives, conceptual clarity or industry depth – that would require a formal degree!

The Limits of Lecture Style Training

Unfortunately, there is a key shortcoming in the whole certification program. A person going through any kind of classroom type training is limited in how much they can understand. This includes any kind of knowledge download or dump – videos, online courses, virtual classrooms, reading, webinars or physical classes. With technology that changes every day, the depth of knowledge imparted through such knowledge downloads is woefully inadequate. Expertise in technology is difficult to attain without getting one’s hands dirty.

Trying to make the training more “practical”, involving more exercises is good and does lead to better-trained personnel. But this is a long process and does not fit in with the timelines of most certification programs.  

An actual customer implementation is probably the best teacher available right now. However, this leads to an unintended consequence – channel partners tend to stick with the vendor solutions that they have implemented before. Even if they can partner with other tech providers for better options they prefer to stick to what they know.

Vendor Bias in Training Programs

Certification is done, quite understandably, from the vendor’s point of view. The program is not built to generate an understanding of the tech world that we live in. That is taken as a given. Expertise in the vendor’s solution is the focus, and rightfully so. Talking points refer to that solution’s strengths and gloss over the weaknesses. There is no reason for a vendor to teach the participant the advantages of the competitor’s technology. Or explain the shortcomings of their own.

When the certified salesperson, however, is in front of the customer, this certification does not help them address all the queries. They are unable to clear the doubts or provide a complete (and objective) view that would satisfy a probing customer.

But there are ways in which this skills gap can be bridged – it will require both vendors and their channel partners to change how they view and grow talent. Stay tuned for the next feature where I share how the tech talent landscape can be changed.