Organizations of all kinds are moving towards digital transformation with a contemporary framework and approach, necessitating internal changes and a new, re-envisioned value proposition to customers. To effectively drive the shift to digital-first businesses and deliver on a post-covid playbook, the enterprise team must undergo its own personal and skills transformation.
Because of constraints and competition for IT talent, filling the skills gap will include up-skilling internal staff. A recent CIO article, “The new IT skills mandate for digital success,” relies on information from Gartner Research, as well as 2021 digital transformation initiatives and enterprise CIO feedback, to share its findings for up-skilling talent in 2021.
Here is a summary of the CIO’s key considerations:
- Sharpen skills for digital transformation by focusing on the organization and strategic attributes. The skills needed include technology integration/implementation, change management, strategy building/formulating a digital business plan, and project management (according to the CIO’s State of the CIO report). Lily Mok, a VP analyst at Gartner says that the new approach to work and a more customer-centric view has changed mindsets and behaviors. “There is a shift in how we approach customer needs — from the outside in — rather than the inside out,” she says.
- Find the hidden talent within. Because of the finite number of positions in a company,
workers must have a growth mindset and be adaptable to change. Optimize every available talent resource. - When returning to a global workforce, find people with skills in customer experience, partner experience, and employee experience. Organizations that are making the move to digital-first or undergoing a transformation need people who can translate business processes to IT systems and data. This modernized way of communicating with customers relies on obvious skills including building cloud-native apps, reliability engineering, agile and DecSecOps, automation, orchestration, programming, microservices, and containers.
- Invest in training to fill gaps through the multi-year digitization journey. Training must address the skills that exist in both organizational and technical dimensions. IT pros must understand the art of “what is possible” using digital tools and workflows to effectively partner with internal stakeholders and provide the most value to customers.
- Executives agree that the “dream IT team” has robust skills that can support a hybrid work program. In addition, the team should be able to create value with internal business partners and stakeholders, blending tech skills with the right culture mashup.
The post-covid playbook’s success relies on a team of prepared individuals. Readiness can be built through an investment in up-skilling, which in turn leads to successful customer experiences and a steadier multi-year digitization journey.
