In this week's news roundup for IT pros, articles on technology skills gaps and digital transformation.
The IT skills gap is real
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Gary Beach argues against those who doubt the existence of a skills gap in IT, pointing to research highlighting concern among CEOs and CIOs and data backing up the scope of the problem. He writes, “An analysis prepared for CIO Journal by Burning Glass Technologies, a Boston-based data analytics firm, and CompTIA, an industry trade association, reveals 558,713 information technology jobs remain 'open' after 90 days of search. That translates into this jaw-dropping statistic: every quarter 50,284,170 days of IT work are lost to the skills gap in America!” Beach goes on to highlight the specific skills that are hardest for CIOs to fill, and a few ways businesses will need to alter their thinking around hiring in order to bridge the gaps.
Planning for digital transformation
What happens to the CIO role when technology takes center stage in the business? Andrew Horne covers the five career paths for the digital CIO in Network World this week. From Systems Provider, to Digital Evangelist, to Productizer, Horne says that while “most CIOs will aim to spend the bulk of their time moving along one path,” there will be some overlap based on a company's digital maturity. Which career path inspires you?
Whatever path you choose, Alison DeNisco reminds CIOs that it's time to start thinking about budgeting for digital transformation efforts in 2017 in her article this week in ZDNet. She writes, “Some 61 percent of technology decision makers said their company's IT budget will be increasing in 2017, according to a new Tech Pro Research survey. Increasing productivity with technology was one of the top IT priorities going into the new year, the survey found.” DeNisco's article provides insights into the budgeting strategy of four different CIOs. The percentage of budget allocated for digital transformation ranged from 20 percent to as much as 80 percent.
More news for CIOs
Keep calm and prepare for everything: What CIOs need to know about crisis management [ZDNet]
3 industries that will be transformed by AI, machine learning and big data in the next decade [Forbes]
These 24 Americans are changing the world — and they're all under 40 [Business Insider] Congratulations to Enterpriser David Bray for making the list!
