Four Megaforces will change the landscape for IT professionals

The following four megaforces will affect the IT profession through 2010:

1. GLOBAL SOURCING: It is a well known fact that certain IT skills, knowledge bases and services can be competitively delivered across borders. The emergence of IT professionals in Asia and other areas have clearly exploded the traditional assumptions of job security - higher education, specialized skills and intrinsic intellectual value. Global sourcing will make IT professionals compete aggressively against their peers in other markets.

2. IT AUTOMATION: This includes software development, testing, remote system monitoring, operation centers, technical support, storage and networking. Two areas - utility based computing and virtual & standardized architecture (the IT factory of the future) will halve the number of IT jobs (in the data centers and operations area) in the next 10-15 years. However, the skill of design, synthesis and integration will hold value. The challenge will be in differentiating what can be automated to what should be automated.

3. CONSUMER IT: Consumer IT and online service companies emphasize usability, personalization and customer intimacy. In contrast, business IT emphasize security, central control, compliance, cost efficiency, and "one-size-fits-all" standards. Now, business IT and consumer IT are converging in a new focal point, the "worker-consumer". IT professionals must now learn to design products and services that are intuitive, personalized, technically transparent and easily supported. Companies will now look for people who have a consumer focused mindset and understand consumer behaviour, have strong skills in ergonomics, information design and service bundling.

4. BUSINESS RECONFIGURATION: Consolidation, globalization, expansion, outsourcing, downsizing, re-engineering, and mergers and acquisitions will disrupt roles, relationships and performance of IT professionals as their companies will clumsily (without understanding what the organization can absorb and without orchestrating the numerous changes affecting people) pursue the elusive goal of business agility and organizational effectiveness. As people jockey for position, they will be under enormous pressure to adapt.

Source: Gartner, 14th Sept, 2005