Developing and retaining IT talent ranks as one fo the largest challenges for IT departments and organizations, according to findings from the McKinsey Global Survey.
The survey asked more than 800 executives about their companies' priorities for, spending on, and satisfaction with IT. Compared to the previous two years, 2013's respondents are more negative about IT performance than in previous years, saying that IT facilties and organizations are less likely to share knowledge, deliver productivity gains, create new products, enter less markets, and have a reduced ability to track customer or segment profitability.
IT executives held more negative views than their business counterparts. Thirteen percent of IT execs, which made up about 44% of the survey respondents, say their IT organizations are completely or very effective in introducing new technology faster than their competitors, down from 22% in 2012. IT executives are much more likely (28%) to want IT management replacement than business executives (13%) as a way to improve IT performance.
IT management and staffing replacement comes at a price. Two-thirds of respondents say that it is a significant challenge to find, develop and retain talent, especially when only 23% of these organizations have formal processes to govern IT talent and skills management, and CIOs spend 8% of their time developing other employees' job skills.
Repondents identify talent shortages in analytics, joint business and IT, and mobile and online skills. Talent acquisition will improve through higher culture and morale of the IT department, competitive salaries and benefits, more structured career paths and exciting work, respondents say.
Next page: Changing IT Priorities
Changing Priorities
Concerns about reducing IT costs are down, but executives are much more concerned with improving effectiveness of business processes than in previous years. Survey authors Naufal Khan and Johnson Sikes theorize that “companies are getting better at aligning their actual priorities with what's ideal–and more executives see IT as core and relevant to day-to-day business, not merely a cost center.”
Supporting these priorities, 64% of executives say their IT budgets will increase this year, up from 55% who said so in 2012. Budgets are primarily spent on infrastructure and core transactional applications. The executives predict that infrastructure spending will decrease in the upcoming years, which Khan and Sikes say is most likely due to increased use of cloud-computing technology.
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