The perception that IT Pros are socially inept baffles me. Granted, you can clock them stealthing as a human as easily you would and art grad or law enforcement. However, I’ve rarely seen a colleague drop their spaghetti from their breast pocket in a social situation. In fact, IT requires one to explain each business process, deadline, and impact in layman’s terms to anyone. This spurred me into thinking about our place in the business world and how the landscape has changed. I’d argue that we as a workforce have a severe lack of hard skills.
IT as Customer Service
I cut my teeth in the IT service industry and quickly learned how quickly we dump the bad eggs. While many roles require specialized degrees or extensive prior experience, service providers often offer opportunities for individuals with minimal prerequisites. Pay or the massive amount of collaboration and continuing education required in daily life quickly filter people. To succeed, you really have to enjoy working in a support role and constantly interfaing with everyone.
Most issues were dropped on my lap as if I were a dry cleaner. It was my job to attach a ticket to a problem and resolve said ticket within our SLA. I noticed that collaborators quickly rose to the top, and the antisocial left just as fast. However, the companies themselves didn’t experience significant benefits from outsourcing their IT staff. We reduced the time spent on work but didn’t improve processes or business cohesion with technology.
No Longer a Manufacturing Economy
Traditionally, many jobs revolved around tangible assets such as physical goods, machinery, and manual labor. In today’s data-driven economy, a significant portion of jobs, beyond trades, predominantly deal with abstract or intangible assets. This paradigm shift is reshaping the way we perceive and create value in the modern workforce. Businesses increasingly rely on intangible assets such as data. It’s an industry in itself to disrupt industries and consult companies on how to remain competitive. Companies that treat IT as a service provider tend to lag behind compared to companies that are technology driven.
Advances in technology have revolutionized the way we work, and without IT, many jobs and industries would cease to be. Data has emerged as one of the most valuable assets in the contemporary business world. Data on customers, market insights and operational metrics help businesses maximize their revenue while minimizing costs and laser-focusing audiences. Virtual assets have replaced physical assets to reduce liability, and services and intellectual property have replaced goods. Marketing is now done from social media and AdSpace, and retail is done from ecommerce storefronts. Artificial intelligence drives customer service, and we interact with a robot before being routed to a human.
IT the Business Enabler
With our work revolving around data, many companies are requiring IT teams to keep the business competitive. This fails when businesses designate IT as the fix-it fairies or constrain them to specific work parameters. Businesses see IT as downtime insurance or a force multiplier, and while it can be both, IT enables work. With the advent of cloud computing, businesses moved assets from their datacenter to cloud for a larger monthly fee. Technology-driven companies embraced concepts such as containerization, scalability, and high availability, which cut costs and increased revenue. The separation lies in the businesses ability to adapt with the changes in technology.
Newer advancements are sweeping away many menial jobs. Machines can offload graphics for marketing. Intelligent coding predictions are creating functions for business needs, opportunities for code monkeys are going the way of the dodo. Self-checkout delegates inventory management to the consumer. Robots can give financial advice and outperform the market regularly. Advancement in natural language models have destroyed the market for small time writers. Realistic voice synthesizers are eliminating the need for custom portfolios. You can instantly decrypt legalese by uploading your contract online. Combining artificial wombs, generative AI and degenerate sex toys, some say we’re dangerously close to replacing women with android wives.
Lack of Hard Skills
With the shift in technology, many professionals are falling behind. I’ve met many people who were content to stick with the old ways. The finance workers manage their accounts payable through a spreadsheet or the old developers would maintain a monolithic enterprise app. With a layoff, they wouldn’t be employable without understanding modern bookkeeping software or microservices. With rapid advancements in technology, professionals touching data should be learning the new ways to work to stay relevant.
Another aspect to consider is the role of IT. Many IT professionals, especially those in user-facing roles, are responsible for assisting individuals who may not possess technical expertise. In current year, there is no reason for any working professional to be digitally illiterate. IT as a crutch for missing hard skills is a recipe for disaster. Each team should have a leader with enough technical proficiency to embrace changes and maintain the business’s agility. IT as a department should focus on implementing and maintaining infrastructure to enable business processes. The business as a whole should define each unit’s role and facilitate inter-departmental communication to maximize synergy.
Conclusion
As we navigate this data-driven economy, it’s essential for individuals and organizations to adapt. Workers need to develop skills related to data analysis, digital literacy, cybersecurity, and creative problem-solving. Additionally, businesses must recognize the value of their intangible assets, protect them, and invest in their continued growth. Embracing this shift, both as individuals and organizations, is vital for success in today’s world. It’s crucial to recognize the value of a well-rounded skill set for all employees. Company-wide professional development leveraging modern technology is equally as important as training IT on communication, teamwork, and leadership.