6 New IT Roles That You Must Know About

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Businesses and organisations are striving to keep up with rapid technological advancements like service management, the cloud and virtualization. As more businesses are now focussed on information management, the fast pace of the IT industry has necessitated the recruitment of skilled workers. With changing technology, companies now need to modify the knowledge, skills and job roles required to develop, design, execute and organise such advanced technologies. But the fact is most IT firms are struggling to prepare themselves and cope with the growing demands of change.

A Crisis Of Talent

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A recent study by the CEB (Corporate Executive Board) shows that around 80 per cent of information technology firms fail to offer education, coaching or training for skills and abilities they think will enhance in significance. Andrew Horne, CEB Managing Director, says companies which do not have the right plan to cope with such needs can get left behind.

Horne said “The IT talent crisis isn’t new, but there’s a considerable shift happening in the skills that are in demand. We’ve identified six major roles we see as being the ‘future of corporate IT’ that we think most, if not all, innovative companies will need going forward.”

According to CEB, CIOs must aim to fill the following 6 IT roles in order to remain relevant, competitive and economical in 2015-

Collaboration And Social Media Evangelist

IT companies will get many opportunities to collaborate with partners, customers and even internally. However, most businesses are incapable of doing it right. This role will help in understanding why and how workers collaborate. As business is getting more digitised, it will help to create an effective collaboration and social media strategy.

Horne said “They’ll need to know what tools for collaboration and social engagement are available and which will work best within their organization. There will also be a need for the talent in this role to understand how best to foster communication and collaboration among teams.”

Technology Broker

A technology broker will offer purchase advice and support in negotiations to divisions throughout the organisation. This will ensure that make sure the sound purchase decisions are taken and ensure that the existing systems is compatible with the technology.

Horne said “In the past, IT was in charge of all technology purchase decisions and developed specific vendor negotiation and purchasing skills. Now, almost every department from marketing to finance has the ability to buy apps they feel will benefit their group, but in some cases these folks are more willing than able.”

Information Insight Enabler

Most companies tend to have a wealth of statistics, reports and information. However, they are unable to use this data effectively to make strategic decisions and drive their business forward, according to Horne. He said “And information insight enabler is something of a big data role; they act as coaches, not just technologists, to help business leaders and front-line employees to derive greater insight from management reports. These folks understand the data and know best how to put it to business use,” he says.

User Experience Guru

Unimpressive user experience is one of the main reasons that business cannot adopt conventional enterprise software properly. Horne claims “A lot of legacy enterprise tech just isn’t user-friendly, and people won’t use something that’s poorly designed or complex, and that impacts productivity in a negative way.”

He adds “When it comes to productivity tools for collaboration, analytics and mobile, employees will find a more usable alternative, even if it’s not ‘approved’ or provided by IT, so a user experience guru is necessary to understand and improve the user experience and improve collaboration and productivity.”

Cloud Integration Specialist

With the growing popularity of cloud, more and more business leaders are getting their applications and software packages. However, they usually fail to take in to consider the issues related to compatibility and integration with their current systems. This can result in serious obstacles for the business operations.

Horne said “A cloud integration specialist is dedicated to navigating these coordination and integration issues as well as managing and educating purchasers and users on compatibility and on working with vendors to ask the right questions.”

End-To-End IT Service Manager

IT services need proper integration of technology, information and business to develop end-to-end IT services which will improve efficiency and flexibility. Horne added “This end-to-end services model takes everything IT does and stitches it all together – all the technology, data, support, applications, and strategy – to create flexibility, responsiveness and efficiencies.”

These managers will work in senior designations with experience in technology marketing, business engagement and service delivery. Horne said “IT-as-a-service creates an environment where IT adapts to support current practices, current business needs, incorporates new and different technologies and makes it all work seamlessly.”

The Bottom Line

There you have it....six hottest new IT roles for your organisation that you must fill successfully. Horne said “Don’t try and make these hiring decisions in a vacuum or make them exclusive to executives. Don’t hide these roles from your IT team. Engage them in figuring out what holes need to be filled, what positions they need, and also who they have currently whose skills could have additional value.”

What do you think about these IT roles? Feel free to share your own thoughts and vies with us by commenting below. We would love to hear from you.