How are you balancing the needs that put pressure on your IT budget?
On the one hand you have to invest in the latest technologies – Social, mobile, analytics and Cloud – to deliver the promise of digital transformation, but you also have to maintain and invest in your current systems. Your IT budgets are under attack. It’s becoming impossible to even maintain an adequate resourcing model, let alone optimize one.
It’s difficult to attract ramp and retain direct employees. Contractor rates are rising and trusted expertise is in short supply, skills requirements are changing and we have an “aging” IT workforce and it’s all to do with a storm that’s coming.
Firstly, the IT talent shortage, 600,000 position IT skills gap, an ageing IT workforce, declining IT graduation rates and deteriorating retention rates. All of which leads to the Global IT talent shortage.
Secondly, contemporary technologies and methodologies promote the need for local, onshore resource groups, rather than distant offshore groups.
And thirdly, Digital business and digital transformation make CIO’s realize that to prosper they need to make balanced investment decisions. They need new skills – Cloud, Digital, Big Data, and Mobile – where time matters, collaboration is essential and business contextual understanding is mandatory. And it’s not just a storm. Every day it starts to look like the “perfect storm”.
Gartner recognizes this dilemma: In their Research Note from April 21, 2015 Helen Huntley and Allie Young point out “to survive the IT talent shortage, strategic planners and business unit leaders must think outside the box on how they will attract and grow their IT talent pool”.
Failure to address this is putting your “above the line” goals at risk and the company in peril. The development backlog continues to grow, re-platforming projects get delayed, the adoption of digital strategies flounder.
You are thinking of your three IT sourcing options, direct employees, onsite consulting/staff augmentation and offshore. Your IT sourcing options are less limited than you think. There’s a fourth option – U.S. Onshoring. A sustainable, flexible, scalable IT consulting model purpose built to combat this modern day dilemma.
Eagle Creek: when onsite is too expensive and offshore just won’t work.