How successful businesses are winning the race in IT | May19 Newsletter
Technology may be changing faster than ever, but successful organisations are still reliant on the expertise of employees, partners and vendors to win the IT race, according to a recent OneAffiniti survey.
The finding is one of key IT trends identified in OneAffiniti's 2019 Benchmark IT Report, which explored the differences between successful and unsuccessful businesses concerning the use of IT.
The survey of 186 Australian and New Zealand individuals in decision-making or decision-influencing positions found successful organisations are able to identify the challenges facing their IT and resource accordingly, drawing upon the skills of employees, partners and vendors.
Expertise: #1 IT success factor
Asked the key IT project success factors, ‘partner technical support' rated top at 28 per cent, followed by ‘strong internal expertise' (23 per cent) and ‘sufficient budget' (11 per cent), along with ‘vendor support' (10 per cent).
These factors correlate with those identified by Erin Palmer as key to project success, namely:
- Having smart people with a commitment to the group and a shared vision.
- Smart planning to ensure a project is set up for success from the get-go.
- Open communication within the team.
- Careful risk management.
- Strong project closure that confirms project delivery, testing and release.
Given the dominance of technical skills, CIOs, COOs and boards alike should ensure such skills are available when making hiring decisions and strategic plans for significant IT deployments.
Analysing the results, the survey showed that successful businesses identify their needs, allocate sufficient budget to meet them and invest in the relationships needed to meet any challenges.
Partnerships also critical
Partnerships are vital to this process, as highlighted by CompTIA, since the small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) most satisfied with their IT also have close relationships with their technology partners, while larger companies seek help from partners in filling skills gaps.
Reflecting on the biggest challenges faced by successful projects, survey respondents gave a range of responses, from ‘insufficient expertise' (18 per cent) to ‘insufficient budget' (15 per cent) and ‘poor internal training and communications' (11 per cent).
Tellingly, successful businesses better understood the challenges they faced than their unsuccessful competitors.
Recruiting is the key
According to CompTIA's latest research, the APAC IT market accounts for nearly one-third of global IT spend and is set to continue growing. This means finding workers with the right skills and experience, particularly in emerging areas such as machine learning, IoT integration or robotics process automation (RPA) is critical, along with the necessary ‘soft skills'.
This is particularly the case amid intense competition for tech talent, rising salary expectations and the limited pool of available workers.
And with the global IT industry expected to reach $5 trillion in 2019, according to IDC, businesses that secure the right expertise will have a wealth of opportunities for growth.
To recap: successful IT businesses are those with access to vendor support, internal expertise and sufficient budget, amid growing demand for tech in 2019. Does that sound like your business? If not, then you know what to do.