If the UK is to maintain its position as a leading world
economy, its productivity must improve, writes Paul Coby, CIO
of British Airways.
Research by the IT and telecoms skills council
e-skills UK indicates that
effective use of technology is the single most important
productivity-boosting step the UK can take, offering
potential gains of £35bn over the next five to seven years.
Technology enables UK businesses across all sectors to access
new markets, improve performance and save costs. It is also
fundamental to the UK's ability to attract high value-added
business and investment.
Making the most of IT means focusing on
how to improve business performance, rather than on the technology
itself. For example, in the past six years smart use of
technology has helped us to transform British Airways by
simplifying business processes, cutting costs, better serving
customers and enabling staff.
Simplification and ease of use is central to our philosophy of
IT-enabled change. Every one of our 43,000 employees, including air
crew, flight crew, office staff and baggage handlers, has access to
e-mail and can check their pay and work schedules anywhere in the
world. We anticipate that four out of every five passengers at the
new
Heathrow Terminal 5 will check in online or at the self-service
kiosk at the airport.
For transformational IT projects to succeed, UK companies need
IT professionals who can understand and respond to changing
customer and business needs, and who can develop products and
services and drive innovation. This requires a high level of
skills.
IT today is global. Workforce globalisation should not be seen
as a threat to the UK, but an opportunity. We need to make UK
businesses more competitive which, in turn, will help them to
succeed and attract more value-added business. But to seize this
opportunity it is critical that we invest in IT and related
business skills.
UK companies need not just skilled and professional
business-oriented IT experts, but also business leaders who
understand how to use IT effectively. Equally important is a
general workforce that is trained and able to use technology to do
their jobs. In the next few years each of these communities will
require skills at increasingly advanced levels.
The development of IT skills is vital throughout the UK economy
and education system. We, and companies like us, already invest
heavily in training. We also work closely with e-skills UK to
promote skills development across the industry. If the UK gets this
right, it will be a winner in the new world economy. Get it wrong
and we throw away the essential foundation of a competitive
world-class economy it would be a mistake we might never recover
from.
Paul Coby is CIO of BA and chair of the CIO board of
e-skills UK, the sector skills council for IT and telecoms