News and analysis to 2nd July 2008
Degree nisi
The British Computer Society recently criticized the UK
Government for withdrawing funding for second degrees in IT, claiming that this
will in effect deter people from pursuing a career in the IT industry. If the
discussion were around Law or medicine I would understand this. But in the fast
moving world of IT the degree syllabuses rarely keep up with the needs of
employers, and so are not delivering what industry needs. Possibly if the
academic world could make a more compelling case for the relevance of their
qualifications in an experience-led industry then the Government might
reconsider this?
Viva the laptop guy
Only 13% of 500 European senior executives stated that the
CIO was influential in respect of their business strategy. The survey conducted
by Progress Software found that most CIOs are informed of business strategy and
then told to support it. This is of course a very unhealthy situation given the
extent to which IT underpins Western business.
Having attended the IT Director Forum event recently as one of the
‘cabaret acts’, it was plain to see that many CIOs are struggling to be
perceived as strategic, given that the boardroom sees them as the guy that
fixes the laptops.
Out of service?
IT service management would appear to have some way to go
according to a survey conducted by Forrester and sponsored by Compuware.
Specifically 41% of IT decisions makers said they only had a basic
understanding of the service levels they were working to. Unsurprisingly they
didn’t provide service level agreement data to executives. 40% didn’t actually
provide the information that the business had requested. Could this be that the
IT function has yet to grasp the concept of service? Possibly. But it is more
likely that the lack of communication and trust between the IT function and the
business has led to this situation. Maybe it is time for both parties to focus
on their mutual trust levels knowing that once these are satisfactory the
appropriate service levels will follow naturally?
Generation L
According to the Chartered Management Institute in the UK,
younger managers in the IT sector are a loyal, ethical bunch focused on
long-term career aspirations. This is a surprising discovery given the
stereotypical Generation Y model, where individuals are expected to be
self-obsessed, disloyal, and impatient. Only 14% of respondents claimed they
would quit their job tomorrow if they bagged a winning lottery ticket, and 85%
were motivated to work for a company that did something they believed in. It
would appear that to retain the best talent employers need to get their ethics
in shape and to provide a talent management framework that ensures that IT
people have access to genuine career progression. Is generation Y really Generation
L(oyal)?
Google – Beyond server farms
Having conquered the Earth, Google is now looking at Outer
Space. Or is it? The search engine powerhouse has just signed a 40-year lease
with NASA for 42 acres of land. It plans to develop a new technology facility
as well as employee housing, childcare and dining facilities. Google would
appear to be taking work life integration to its natural conclusion by creating
what appears to be an employee farm; an environment where staff can work, live
and perhaps most importantly create the next generation of Google employees.
This is one approach to handling the imminent global talent management
challenge.
Microsoft misreads market again
Microsoft appears to have delusion of grandeur. For a period
in the nineties it believed that it could build an alternative and better
version of the web. When it realised this wasn’t to be it launched into
catch-up mode, which to some extent has triggered the change in technology
leadership at the top 10 years later. Another more recent example is
Microsoft’s attempt to be the central repository for every book ever written.
Since 2005 it has scanned 750,000 books and 80 million journals, but recently
announced that it was abandoning this grand plan to focus on more niche areas such
as travel listings. On the face of it Microsoft can absorb such costly
mistakes, but it needs to recognise that the IT market is much bigger and
diverse than the IT world of the MS-Dos days and thus should choose its markets
more carefully.
