BackIT teams reeling under rapid digital transformation pressure
The near-term challenge is to move from reacting to the crisis to building and institutionalising what has been done well so far
PremiumBENGALURU: The digital is ever-evolving and there is no chance of slowing down in the near future. With increasing demand from consumers, companies have been struggling to deliver fast. Especially with the onset of the pandemic, workplaces have evolved rapidly which came along with employee expectation of digital-first. This brings heavy pressure on IT departments to rejig operation fast, while retaining tech talent.
"Keeping up with digital transformation (32%) and keeping talent in technical roles (26%) are the two biggest challenges their (IT professionals) organisations face today," stated a study by Ivanti.
"IT departments are viewed as critical to an organisation’s growth and business strategy by 61% of respondents. However, despite this high level of support for the IT department, 72% of respondents reported losing team members with 41% of respondents citing a high workload as the top reason for losing team members," it said.
The covid-19 pandemic has made it necessary for organisations to rethink their operations and transform them. The further they head towards it, more the productivity.
"That evolution has not always been a seamless or elegant process: businesses had to scramble to install or adapt new technologies under intense pressure," said a McKinsey report.
According to the report, the result has been that some systems are clunky. The near-term challenge, then, is to move from reacting to the crisis to building and institutionalising what has been done well so far. For consumer industries, and particularly for retail, that could mean improving digital and omnichannel business models. For healthcare, it’s about establishing virtual options as a norm. For insurance, it’s about personalising the customer experience. And for semiconductors, it’s about identifying and investing in next-generation products. For everyone, there will be new opportunities in M&A and an urgent need to invest in capability building.
Also read: 5 trends that will dominate the IoT industry in 2022
Earlier, in a manufacturing company, no one could have imagined a remote working concept. However, with the onset of the pandemic changed this. While technology has come far and tools are available to bring in digitisation, it needs to be noted that this cannot happen at a sharp switch.
"Even if you bring in all the technology required, it cannot be adopted overnight. Employees need to go through upskilling to implement them," said Ravi Kalla, Head, Information Technology, Process Automation & Instrumentation, Anthem Biosciences Private Limited.
"There should be vision and foresight and good planning to mitigate the technology hurdles. Proper digitisation requires mature models. For instance, we had all the layers- lab, IT, quality, manufacturing- remotely accessible," he added.
Ivanti points out that factors behind IT staff attrition include unrealistic expectations placed on the team (34%); lack of executive support (32%); remote work was not a possibility (28%); executive hesitancy to adopt automation (26%); lack of critical technology to effectively do job (24%). Also, routine manual tasks consume IT and service desk resources and limit IT teams’ ability to move ahead with higher-impact strategic projects.
"The vanishing of location parameter has also contributed to higher attrition. People can now work for global companies sitting at their native places with 10X salary," said Kalla.
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