TALKING
‘‘ business
The term ‘ Digital Transformation ’ is more readily applied to technological change within enterprises than it is to people . Without people , however , transformation is unlikely to happen , and the most successful projects are those where people are put at the very centre from the start .
One of the main objectives of Digital Transformation is to empower the workforce to operate more efficiently . If certain tasks can be automated , skilled employees will have more time to spend on the work they were contracted to do and the tasks that bring most value to the company .
The reality is that some organisations may already be advanced in their transformation journey , but they are struggling to reap the rewards of their effort and investment . They have focused on hardware and software installations and for a wide number of reasons – including lack of time and being tied up in processes – have not paid enough attention to the teams using the new technology , considered the need for ongoing training , or simply cannot find people with the right skills to maintain it .
Marrying legacy knowledge with digital know-how
The challenge of Digital Transformation is that it requires two strands of knowledge and experience and there is a considerable gap between them that is hampering progress .
The first strand is managing the legacy technology that is already in place . Large organisations in traditional sectors including banking , financial services , government , public sector and education still rely on legacy applications and mainframes supported by employees with many years of deep knowledge in how the applications work and the languages they use . They are accustomed to stable , continuous infrastructure , rather than the rapid innovations of today .
As transformation projects evolve , however , a second strand of skills is needed and this can extend beyond an understanding of modern digital technology .
According to Gartner , tech industry leaders look for a digital skill set that not only includes Digital Transformation , but engineering , knowledge of Microsoft Azure and other cloud technologies , security , computer science and tech infrastructure .
Companies need workers that understand agile development and have experience across the full stack of modern technology if they are to maximise the huge investment in infrastructure that they are making . Meanwhile , CIOs and senior managers striving to keep their modernisation efforts on track must find a way to retain , engage and transition the existing workforce .
Bringing the two strands together in harmony is a considerable undertaking , but successful transformation is about building modern solutions in parallel with legacy systems so that vast inventories of data can be mined and customers can be seamlessly transitioned .
There is another reason why training and investing in those skilled in legacy technology is important . The market is simply not rich in digitally enabled human resources . According to a report published last year , 30 % of organisations believed a shortage of skills to implement technology would be their number one challenge in the next 12 months .
This is reflective of a broader situation revealed recently by research from the Learning & Work Institute , which found that since 2015 , there has been
Chris Buijs , EMEA Field CTO , NS1
Companies need workers that understand agile development and have experience across the full stack of modern technology if they are to maximise the huge investment in infrastructure that they are making .
www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE 39