Matching skills to services aspirations
Bob Tarzey says skills mismatch in end-user organisations may be solved as VARs become true services providers
Resellers that can help their customers manage their IT infrastructure more efficiently should find opportunity abounds if they get their services offerings and messaging right - and they increasingly need to be seen as IT services providers. This is one of the conclusions we made in a report called The Wastage of Human Capital in IT Operations.
We found that IT departments need to be smarter about how they use staff skills. About 30 per cent of the respondents to the survey, senior IT managers in a range of industries, admitted about a third of their team's time is spent on low-level, often mundane or repetitive tasks. They went on to say that their team members spend only 40 per cent of their time on tasks that require the qualifications they have.
Many such tasks could be farmed out. It is not just about managing IT infrastructure more efficiently and controlling costs, but also to do with what the overall focus of IT teams should be in the first place.
Chart: What are the top three frustrations for your team?
(Result reflects the percent of respondents, from differently-sized companies, that selected each challenge). Copyright Quocirca 2013
IT managers say they would really like to focus on modernising IT infrastructure and delivering new applications. Quocirca would argue that the second of these is the most important. It is not that the modernisation of IT infrastructure is unimportant, but that state-of-the-art IT platforms can be bought as a service through any on-demand provider.
As the providers that manage such platforms carry out the mundane tasks - such as maintenance, patching and upgrades - as part of the service, the waste outlined above simply disappears.
This frees up IT departments to focus on delivering new applications. That is surely the Holy Grail for any right-minded chief information officer, delivering high-quality application services to the business. In fact, this process of refocusing means different staff would be needed anyway - perhaps more business process analysts and fewer IT technicians.
Resellers that want to be seen as services providers and trusted advisers should focus on two things. Firstly, they should be in a position to recommend and deliver on-demand services, be this IaaS, PaaS or full SaaS. This does not necessarily mean owning the infrastructure, but creating a network of relationships to supply such services, through cloud brokerage or aggregation.
Secondly, they should have the tools, skills and automated processes to manage integrated customer platforms that span legacy equipment and on-demand services, migrating applications over time where possible or appropriate.
Over time, more technically focused staff will drift away from end-user organisations anyway to find more fulfilling jobs with specialists, be they providers of on-demand platforms or those very resellers that aspire to be seen as services providers.
Chart above: What would you do if your IT ops team had 50 per cent more time? Copyright Quocirca 2013
Their new employers will make better use of their skills, as with IT delivery as their core business they will be less likely to waste these skills in the way end-user organisations manage to do. Those who remain with end-user organisations will be able to focus on delivering true business value, which for many will have been a long-frustrated ambition.
Quocirca's report includes recommendations for automating and industrialising the management of IT infrastructure. These are as relevant, if not more relevant, for services providers as they are for end-user organisations.
Never has it been a better time for resellers to step up and add the value they have always aspired to, and become true IT services providers.
Bob Tarzey is research director at Quocirca