SINGAPORE, 29 APRIL 2009 – Industries in the Asia Pacific stand to be negatively affected by a lack of relevant IT talent, according to IT research firm Springboard Research.
Springboard surveyed 400 IT end-users, 400 software developers and programmers and 82 IT training and education providers in Australia, China, India, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Results from the survey showed Asia Pacific enterprises are experiencing the greatest shortage in areas such as enterprise architecture, application development and system integration. The survey also found regional companies to be lacking talented IT staff who also possess business-domain knowledge and managerial skills.
“The biggest current skills-related challenge facing the IT industry is not availability, but rather gaps in the available skill pool,” said Ravi Shekhar Pandey, research manager, Springboard Research. “Also, the quality of both technical and non-technical skills is certainly an issue, and where quality is not a concern, it is challenging to find enough people with an adequate blend of skills and experience.” Pandey said experience could refer to relevant project management skills, acquired people skills or work experience.
The report also pointed out that skill shortages were more apparent in the manufacturing and government sectors, while the finance and government sectors suffered from the lack of quality skills. The shortage of IT professionals with adequate business knowledge most affected high-tech manufacturing companies, such as those in the semiconductor and flat panel display business.
Time to restructure
Research findings showed 70 per cent of businesses surveyed were not looking to hire IT staff in the next year, while those planning to hire were mostly looking for individuals skilled in IT support and maintenance, application development and system integration.
Seventy per cent of companies seeking to hire reported requiring personnel skilled in Microsoft applications, followed by SAP, Oracle and IBM.
“We believe that as demand for IT products and services slows down, organisations can acquire new employees and skills without paying a premium,” said Pandey.
Language demand
IT developers surveyed showed Microsoft programming languages to be the most popular, while more than half of the respondents found Java to be the most essential language to possess proficiency in, given today’s business environment.
Thirty-seven per cent of IT developers surveyed listed acquiring project management skills as a top priority. Other vendor-specific skills that ranked high on the agenda include Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.
IT training and education providers surveyed said courses in C++ and Java were the most popular.
