A proportionate response to downsizing
I must confess to feeling slightly alarmed when I saw the headline on this website proclaiming “One in seven businesses in Ireland planning cuts to IT teams. At first glance, that seems a lot. But then, when you stop to consider it, maybe it’s not quite as drastic as you might think at first.
When you stop to ponder, there aren’t many things that come in units of seven. Wonders of the world, obviously. And while it would be bad to lose one, it wouldn’t be a catastrophe. Losing six isn’t great but you can learn to live without them. Likewise, losing one of the seven deadly sins isn’t going to have much of an impact unless it’s the one you are most guilty of. And let’s not get started on the seven virtues. Most people would probably be more than happy to lose a couple out of temperance, chastity, diligence, patience, kindness, charity and humility.
Anyway, back to those IT teams. According to the Equinix Global Tech Trends Survey 2023, 67% of companies plan to expand their IT teams. That seems like a lot to me. Now, that high figure may be connected to the fact that a slight majority of companies in Ireland (51%) revealed that they had not grown the size of their IT teams in the past two years.
This enthusiasm for recruiting more staff may dissipate into weary cynicism when companies try to find the IT staff they need because there may not be enough out there to be found. That would explain why so many respondents (71%) worried that the shortage of IT talent could be a threat to their business success. It could be that there isn’t a shortage of IT talent so much as a shortage of the right talent but, as I’ve argued so many times before, it’s almost impossible to have enough of the right talent when the industry is so hell-bent on creating the next big thing before anyone has had enough time to catch up with the last big thing.
This may be why nearly four in 10 IT decision-makers said the wrong skill sets was a serious skills challenge and nearly a third pointed to the speed at which the technology industry was transforming and the lack of available talent. Not to get all Sherlock Holmes on you here but there is a fair chance that all of those factors could be connected.
Talent
Peter Lantry, Equinix Ireland managing director, makes the entirely reasonable point that deciding to reduce IT teams at a time when technology and data “are so central to success is likely to prove short-sighted”. But as he also admits, deciding to increase the size of your IT team is one thing, finding the people is another matter entirely when “demand continues to outweigh supply”.
And the Catch-22 here is that the more central technology becomes to your success, the more vulnerable it might make your business to cyber attacks and breaches. No wonder cyber security is such a pressing concern for so many companies. No wonder that 81% of IT decision-makers believe that improving cybersecurity is the top priority for their organisation’s technology strategy.
All of which augurs well for those channel businesses that can provide the skills that those businesses can’t get anywhere else. And there’s something to be said for a market where external businesses become central repositories for IT skills that a business might need some of the time but not all of it. Especially if those skills become superfluous in the relatively near future. With so many firms unwilling to train their own staff to match their future technology requirements, you can see why getting someone else to do it might appear an attractive option.
Elsewhere, I thought there was a reassuring measure of self-awareness in the 55% of people who were concerned about the lack of inclusion and diversity in the industry. As for the 59% of IT leaders who were uncomfortable with their existing teams having the skills to accommodate the growth in the use of AI, it’s a concern to me that there aren’t more of you. I’m not sure any of us are really in a position to be complacent about the proliferation of AI. That’s an issue where I’d hope more than one in seven would urge greater caution.
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