People like us who loves tech always tend to look for jobs that are IT related, but come to think of today, the IT job market is flooded with everyone having the same technical proficiency and employers seem to think they can hire people without paying much, therefore causing employees to leave their employers due to lack of job satisfaction and appreciation.
According to a research from Avanade, a global business technology solutions and managed services provider, IT is now playing roles of business advisors by providing the best practices and consulting expertise to both internal stakeholders and external partners. This model is known as the “services broker” model, which IT staff will consult with departments across the business to better understand their technology needs and objectives, source internal or external IT services to partners to meet these demands.
In this case, IT staffs are no longer people that only do coding, hardware maintenance and end user support. Employers want IT departments to bring business forward, by understanding what various parties require in terms of business requirements and play a role in developing more efficient business processes to take the company’s growth to the next level. Hence, IT staffs that land themselves into such a job role will possess both technical and business skills, making their position important and crucial to the company’s success.
More than one-third (38 per cent) of companies’ IT departments act primarily as services broker today. Avanade’s research shows that among Malaysian companies whose IT departments are structured this way, 80 per cent report they will expand the role of IT services broker in the next 12 months. Additionally, 86 per cent of Malaysian companies report their IT department is contributing more to accomplishing business objectives than they did three years ago.
The key findings are helpful to businesses in understanding and determining the roles of their IT department. However, this ultimately depends on the person hired to manage and guide the department. Imagine if IT staffs really possess both technical and business consulting skills, that will really improve the way a company operates its business, and this can easily trigger the blue ocean strategy to make such companies stand out in the competition.
We did find out more from Avanade and according to them, the top four services being offered in IT departments are services and system integration, compliance, application development and business consulting. With staffs possessing abilities and proficiency in these services, its no wonder that C-Level executives see IT departments playing important roles in growing the business, because these four key areas are formulas to a company’s success and growth in the future.
IT folks, what say you about this research? Are any of you working for companies like this? Does your boss really appreciate your hard work and have you or your department brought the company to new heights? Tell us in the comments.
Source: Avanade PR
