{"id":9648,"date":"2015-11-03T10:30:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-03T16:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/?p=9648"},"modified":"2022-11-22T16:04:01","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T22:04:01","slug":"5-ways-the-it-skills-gap-hurts-your-bottom-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/5-ways-the-it-skills-gap-hurts-your-bottom-line\/","title":{"rendered":"5 ways the IT skills gap hurts your bottom line"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Education\"Summary: Despite facing a growing IT skills shortage, many businesses don’t do much to address the issue. Why? They view it as an inconvenience, but don’t understand the true impact it has on their business. In this article, we explore a few big business problems created by the skills gap, and some ways to address the issue.<\/em><\/span>
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photo credit: dierk schaefer<\/a> via photopin<\/a> cc<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a growing problem. More and more, businesses face an IT skills gap–a shortfall between the supply of qualified IT professionals and the necessary IT skills. <\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find plenty of research on the topic. The research firm, Forrester, highlights the issue in a recent article<\/span><\/a>. They find that while 75% of businesses have a digital strategy, only 16% claim to have the skills to deliver it. Another study<\/span><\/a> finds that a whopping 93% of businesses indicate there\u2019s an IT skills gap.<\/p>\n

That being said, the availability of statistics on the issue isn\u2019t the problem. Businesses understand the skills gap exists. <\/p>\n

The problem: While many businesses understand there\u2019s an issue, they don\u2019t do much to fix it. They don\u2019t take the steps necessary to bridge this skills gap<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

For many, they don\u2019t understand the true impact that the skills gap has on their business. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, let\u2019s explore the topic from that angle: What does it mean for business? How does it impact your bottom line? Here are a few ways:<\/p>\n

1. You lose a competitive edge<\/h3>\n

Today, technology plays a larger role in the success of a business than ever before. As explained in this article<\/span>, customer expectations have risen: \u201cIntuitive interfaces, around-the-clock availability, real-time fulfillment, personalized treatment, global consistency, and zero errors\u2014this is the world to which customers have become increasingly accustomed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem is, most traditional organizations can\u2019t meet these expectations. This is a big reason we\u2019re seeing so much disruption in the business world. Companies built in the digital age can swoop in and disrupt entire industries because the former \u201cmarket leaders\u201d can\u2019t compete in the new digital world.<\/p>\n

As businesses struggle to find the right IT skills, they fall behind. They lose their competitive edge. <\/p>\n

\n\u201cMost large companies embrace an Agile Development Methodology within their IT organizations,\u201d says Tom Hart, Chief Operating Officer at Eliassen Group<\/span><\/a>. \u201cThe Agile Methodology focuses on always delivering the greatest business value to the company with scheduled IT initiatives, meaning if an implementation cannot deliver measurable business value (i.e. reduced costs, increased revenue, etc), they are not pursued. Today more than ever before, the inability to onboard any or enough quality IT talent quantitatively results in reduced business value being delivered to the organization, meaning that organizations suffer a loss of competitive advantage or parity, experience increased costs of operations, or introduce fewer business-value solutions through their technology implementations.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. You\u2019re forced to rely on (expensive) outside help<\/h3>\n
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photo credit: geralt<\/a> via pixabay<\/a> cc<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ve seen this problem occur far too often. Companies have no choice but to outsource their development projects to outside consultants because they don\u2019t have the skills in-house. <\/p>\n

Now, this a feasible solution for single projects, but it gets expensive quickly if it includes many development projects over a long period of time. Unless these companies bring in new skills, or bring new skills to their current employees, they\u2019re stuck in an expensive trap.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOnly the high profile projects like customer facing applications have people working on them,\u201d says Nic Grange, CTO at Retriever Communications<\/span><\/a>. \u201cThese people become off limits to any other work. Often it also means having to bring in expensive external contractors to fill gaps. For example, there is a real shortage of User Experience Designers for mobile applications at the moment and that makes building successful applications really difficult without them. So if you want to be building these applications in-house then you are going to need to budget for expensive design consulting agencies each time.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3. You lose business<\/h3>\n

What happens if you don\u2019t have the skills to meet customer demand? What happens if you can\u2019t meet their expectations? You lose business.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a problem faced by all types of companies. For instance, I\u2019ve seen some companies lose customers because they weren\u2019t keeping up with the competition from a technology aspect. If your competitors offer online ordering, and you still take orders by fax…who looks more attractive to a prospect? <\/p>\n

Or, as explained below, it\u2019s an especially important problem for IT services companies. Without the right skills, they may have to turn business away.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf IT roles sit unfilled, we become resource constrained,\u201d says Sue Klumpp, Senior Director of Operations at BrainJocks<\/span><\/a>. \u201cPrior to hiring our most recent additions to the development team, we contemplated turning away business because we simply didn’t have the capacity to meet a client\u2019s needs. Thankfully, we were able to get people on board in time to avoid the worse-case scenario.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

4. You put stress on current employees<\/h3>\n
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photo credit: geralt<\/a> via pixabay<\/a> cc<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What happens when you don\u2019t have the skills or manpower to meet your needs? The pressure usually falls on your current employees. They\u2019re asked to handle tasks above and beyond their job description and\/or skill level–a problem that adds stress to their jobs.<\/p>\n

What happens when your employees are stressed? As mentioned in this article<\/span><\/a>, they become less productive–a problem that only complicates the issue. And, if that stressful environment persists, you risk losing your existing employees. As explained below, it\u2019s important that you recognize this fact and work to keep your employee stress level manageable.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe current development and technical team feels the stress of near-term deadlines and looming start dates for new projects,\u201d says Klumpp. \u201cWe work hard to be a great employer so it\u2019s very important for us to make sure our team consistently has a positive experience, manageable stress level and good work\/life balance.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

5. You don\u2019t get full value out of your technology<\/h3>\n

Another problem occurs when you ask employees to handle tasks above and beyond their job description and\/or skill level: You don\u2019t get the full value out of your technology. After all, the employee placed in charge of that technology isn\u2019t an expert on it. They don\u2019t know all the ins and outs. In most cases, they just keep it running.<\/p>\n

This can create a host of problems, ranging from lost opportunity to lost revenue. For instance, here\u2019s one example of how this problem led to massive losses for a company.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cA web development firm had repeated security breaches to their customers’ web sites,\u201d explains Jeff Huckaby, Found of rackAID, LLC<\/span><\/a>. \u201cThe breaches were avoidable but lack of automated maintenance and monitoring meant they were in the dark. As their customers sites were hacked, they scrambled to find fixes. <\/p>\n

One developer spent half of his day fixing sites and the other half apologizing to customers. Soon, this started hitting the bottom line with customer cancellations, delayed projects and lost opportunities. <\/p>\n

They could have avoided this with a web application firewall service costing just $300 per month. Instead, they were spending over$1500 per week in labor and lost billable hours firefighting. <\/p>\n

Their lead developer was unaware the cost of such services had plummeted in recent years. Or that their hosting operations could easily be put into such a solution. So not knowing, cost them $1000’s instead of $100’s.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What can you do about the skills gap?<\/h3>\n

Here\u2019s the big question: What can you do about this skills gap? Hopefully, you now have a better understanding as to the importance of the problem. It\u2019s not a minor issue that you can afford to ignore. It creates business problems that impact your bottom line.<\/p>\n

So, if your company faces a skills gap, what can you do? What if you can\u2019t find, or can\u2019t afford to bring in the necessary skills? What are your options? While we\u2019ve covered a few ways to bridge this skills gap<\/span><\/a> in a past article, here are three important steps you can take:<\/p>\n

1. Educate your current employees: <\/strong>If you can\u2019t afford to bring in new skills, set up education programs so your existing employees can learn the necessary skills. It\u2019s not a quick fix, but it pays dividends long-term.<\/p>\n

2. Bring new skills to your employees<\/strong>: What happens if you need skills that take years to master? What happens if you need modern solutions today, but don\u2019t have the time to train your employees? In these instances, you can bring modern skills to your current team in the form of software tools. For many tasks, you can find tools that help you bridge the skills gap, and bring modern skills to your existing team.<\/p>\n

3. Turn to a cloud service<\/strong>: Some tasks require so much time and expertise, you may find that it\u2019s actually cheaper to outsource a specific function to a cloud service. As explained below, this saves time and lets your employees focus on more important tasks.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere are a lot of businesses that look to fill this skills deficit – and this is not new,\u201d explains Andre Preoteasa, IT Director at Castle Brands<\/span><\/a>. \u201cBut what is new is that these companies use cloud services.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, I manage my company’s traditional phone system, in which I am not trained, experienced, knowledgeable in nor am I motivated to fully understand and administer a 20th century copper telephone system. To fill that deficit I have hired a company to manage it. They get it done quicker (saves company down time), better (the company uses the true value of the system) and allows me to focus on what I’m good at (that is, I spend time on what matters to the company that I can do more productivity).\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Summary<\/h3>\n

Now, these are just a few ways the IT skills gap hurts your bottom line, but the list could go on. If you would like to add anything to this list, I\u2019d love to hear it. Feel free to share in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Despite facing a growing IT skills shortage, many businesses don’t do much to address the issue. Why? They view it as an inconvenience, but don’t understand the true impact it has on their business. In this article, we explore a few big business problems created by the skills gap, and some ways to address …<\/p>\n

5 ways the IT skills gap hurts your bottom line<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","slim_seo":{"title":"5 ways the IT skills gap hurts your bottom line - mrc's Cup of Joe Blog","description":"Summary: Despite facing a growing IT skills shortage, many businesses don't do much to address the issue. Why? They view it as an inconvenience, but don't under"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[94],"class_list":["post-9648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","tag-skills-gap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9648"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14147,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9648\/revisions\/14147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}