According to some,globalisationis a threat to a healthy
UK job market.
Tabloids warn of the dangers of unmanaged workforce migration
that is created by
offshoring IT, call centres and other support functions. They
also fear that this migration could damage the development of
technical skills that have been so crucial to the UK's economy.
But for CIOs, the challenge is different. The profusion of
software development skills in
India, the Far East and eastern Europe has resulted in a dearth
of IT professionals capable of managing remote and culturally
diverse IT suppliers and partners.
Those fearful of the impact of globalisation can also find
evidence in the
UK's IT jobs market. From November 2005 to the same month in
2007, the number of job vacancies advertised for junior contract IT
staff fell by nearly 10% as more basic programming jobs are
transferred overseas, according to the
Computer Weekly/SSL survey. In the same period there was a
decline of 7% in the number of vacancies advertised by software
houses in the UK.
But there are opportunities in the jobs market too. Tilly
Travers, head of communications at
E-Skills UK, the joint government and industry body for IT and
ecommerce skills, says, "Globalisation, offshoring and competition
have changed the face of the IT industry. We see that globalisation
will also bring opportunities for the UK, it is not just about
challenges. People often see offshoring as negative, but it allows
UK businesses to be more competitive."
This is borne out by the overall jobs-market data. For example,
the SSL research from November 2006 said demand for senior
permanent posts rose by 12%, highlighting the growing need for
businesses to hire experienced staff to plan, contract and manage
outsourcing arrangements.
CIOs can create an environment where IT staff feel they are
being prepared for globalisation, according to Elizabeth Sparrow,
vice-president of external relations at the
British Computer Society.
"Globalisation is a major business trend, and not something that
you can halt. The UK has a tremendous amount to offer, but we need
to identify our competitive strengths and develop the skills for
business."
Since 2004, Sparrow has headed a working group in the BCS to
examine the impact of globalisation on the UK skills market and how
business should respond.
Growing demand for relationship managers
Overall, specific demand for technical skills will fall, but
with it will come an increased need to hire people who are
technically knowledgeable, but are also experienced in managing
relationships, both internal and external, she says.
CIOs should be building strategies in order to develop these
skills, because it is difficult to find them in the market place,
Sparrow says. "I think we are seeing a range of new skills needed
that are not as well developed as you might think. There are
requirements for managing relationships between different
suppliers, identifying services most appropriate for outsourcing,
and knowledge of different types of contract or commercial
arrangements.
"Those are not well understood, and the profession is not
developing those as quickly as might be anticipated. They are not
widely available so that the businesses can recruit new people to
do them."
Daryl Beck, director of IT excellence at
Unilever's IT training academy, testifies to the scarcity of
these key IT management skills. As already reported in this series,
the global consumer products firm has re-aligned IT through
outsourcing and partnering with a small number of key service and
software providers. However, it must also develop the skills
in-house to manage these relationships, he says.
"The skills to manage contracts and outsourcers are very scarce
because this is simply a new thing globally. We have spent two
years developing the capability for business partnering," Beck
says.
The key skill to develop is the ability to mange relationships,
Beck says. "If you do not have a relationship, it does not go
anywhere." Those managing outsourcing or offshoring contracts must
also understand how to manage the delivery against the contract, he
says.
IT leaders looking to recruit in this area must also seek out
softer skills, such as the ability to question and listen, as
well as presentation skills, Beck says.
The shift in the jobs market is also demanding that IT
professionals have a better understanding have of their own
business.
Unilever is developing specialities in identifying future
opportunities through the application of new technologies, partly
through partnering programmes between IT professionals and managers
within business units.
However, these roles require new skills from IT professionals,
Beck says.
"When we put together business partnering programmes, there are
areas IT people need to develop. One is confidence - the old
technology skills were acquired by introverted people, used to
sitting in a room and do some coding."
Now, IT professionals must become used to being more outgoing
and communicate ideas to other groups within their business, Beck
says.
In software development too, communication and relationships
skills are required by IT professionals to compete on the global
stage. Few businesses are more globalised than
Amadeus, a travel distribution and technology firm that boasts
a presence in more than 200 countries around the world - more than
the UN.
Soft skills for all
Denis Lacroix, director of development, sales and commerce
platforms, said technical gurus still need softer skills. "We also
work closely with the main software suppliers
Oracle, HP, IBM, who provide the building blocks our software
works on. The people that need to talk on the technical basis,
those are our gurus. They talk to the suppliers on technical
issues, but they are also representing Amadeus, so although they
are nerds, we want them to give the suppliers a good image of
Amadeus they have to be socially capable to speak on our
behalf."
Amadeus's global nature means it has a self-consciously
international approach to recruitment of its technology workforce.
Its software development is led from offices in Nice, where English
is the lingua franca and more than 40% of developers are from
outside the country.
Corinne Pirinoli, Amadeus senior manager for communications and
recruitment, says this requires a special approach to recruitment.
"We look for the capability of people to integrate across
international boundaries. We do a personality interview and look
for things like respect and team spirit."
Although Amadeus has an international attitude embedded in its
culture, globalisation still presents challenges as the firm begins
to recruit from Japan and China, Lacroix says.
"Retention has been a problem [with this group] and it is not
traditionally a problem in Amadeus at all. We thought the cultural
gap would be quicker to overcome. We think because we can mix
engineers from Spain and the US, then why not China, but it is
different. It is difficult to talk about without being drawn by
stereotypes.
"These engineers [from Japan and China] are very sharp, but you
cannot manage them like you have managed people so far. They expect
a lot more attention. You cannot give them a job and then speak to
them a month later."
Although the software engineers from overseas were just as
capable as using their initiative as western counterparts, they
would still expect to have conversations with management almost
daily, Lacroix says. "For the first-line managers this is a big
challenge, but we have got to crack this one. It is a big areas for
us.
"We give training to our people in what to expect when managing
Asian engineers and we have found a company in France that can do
that. We understand European and North American culture, but we
have not been exposed to Asian culture in the same way."
As Chinese firms continue to flex their international ambition
and western firms are striving to buy their way into new markets in
the far east, it is not hard to see that firms succeeding in
managing a workforce across this cultural divide will be the
winners while the rest will trail in their wake.
Case study: Unilever
Unilever's global credentials are unquestionable. It is the
world's largest consumer good manufacturer with a presence in 100
countries. Earlier in this series on globalisation we have seen how
Unilever moved its IT strategy from an internal delivery to working
with four key IT supplier: Microsoft, HP, SAP and BT. Oracle and
IBM make up a second tier of partnership.
This shift has caused the multinational to take a new look at
its IT skills. Neil Cameron, Unilever CIO, says, "We are moving
from a 'deliver all' function to one with a far more strategic and
proactive focus. We therefore now need to concentrate on those
activities that add real value to the delivery of our business
strategy and business targets. This will require a new IT structure
with new skills and capabilities built around industry best
practice."
The company's intranet-hosted IT career framework enables the
5,000-odd members of the IT community at Unilever to develop skills
and capabilities that are based on a guide to best practice in the
IT industry: the skills, training and development standard SFIAplus
from the British Computer Society (BCS). SFIAplus contains the
Skills Framework for the Information age (SFIA) model, plus
detailed training and development resources.
The SFIA provides a model for the identification of the skills
needed to develop effective information systems. It is a
two-dimensional framework consisting of areas of work on one axis
and levels of responsibility on the other, according to its
developers, the BCS, government-backed E-skills UK, the Institution
Of Engineering and Technology and government IT advisor IMIS.
The new skills framework is necessary because exploiting IT
effectively is one of the company's key weapons in the race for
competitive advantage, says the director of Unilever's IT
Excellence academy, Daryl Beck.
"The Career Framework enables our people to identify the skills
and capabilities that would be required for any future role they
would like to pursue. The subsequent development programmes should
raise their skills level and lead to external accreditation as well
as internal assessment."
It was while looking at the skills and capabilities aligned to
industry best practice that the academy came across the BCS's
standard SFIAplus.
"The credibility of the BCS badge, that label of industry best
practice, meant that the Career Framework was easily accepted,"
Daryl says.
Work on the Career Framework officially started in January 2006.
A cross-regional team identified ten "role families" from the 78
skills held in SFIAplus. Role profiles were then created for each
of the role families and aligned to a future IT function. These
were created using BCS Skills Manager, a browser-based
application.
Employees are now able to access the profiles and assess their
own IT skills against those required for either a potential or
current role. They can then enrol on to a relevant development
programme to reach the required skill level as well as gaining
appropriate external accreditation.
Daryl says, "It is all about enabling Unilever to gain
competitive advantage through IT. For this we need to ensure that
we have an IT function with the necessary IT skills and
capabilities based on industry best practice. For the members of
the IT team, it is about having the right qualifications, being
professional and enabling the business to move forward."
Recruiting graduates across Europe: the experience of a
global travel company
Amadeus is a global travel distribution company heavily reliant
on technology. From its original market of airline ticket
distribution, it is expanding into rail tickets, hotels and
entertainment. It is also a supplier of software and services to
the travel market.
Recruiting the right software developers is tough job, says
Denis Lacroix, director of development, sales and commerce
platforms. One approach is to send Amadeus staff back to the
universities they graduated from.
"We have a policy to recruit top notch people: the best
graduates across Europe," Lacroix says. "The problem is we are not
the only company going after these people, so we try to get close
to students at university. When an Irish graduate from Trinity
College Dublin goes back and speaks highly of Amadeus, then that
gets the pump going for more top graduates to come our way, because
they naturally trust someone who has come up through the
college."
Amadeus has development centres in the UK and Germany, but its
development headquarters are in Nice. "Our international culture is
a strong attraction to people from all over the place. The
challenge in the UK is competition from the big financial
institutions [on salary], so we switch emphasis and encourage
people to check out the standard of living on the French Riviera -
can you get to work in 10 minutes? Does the sun shine most of the
year?"
Anyone stuck in traffic in a rainy British summer may see the
appeal.