RSSIT jobs in a down market
As it seems inevitable that we are going to have a significantly down market at this point (previous prognostications over the sustainability of IT in recession or low growth economy are obviously right out the window), it seems like a good time to comment on the likely progression of IT in a down market. This is a topic for writers with more wisdom and better schooling in economics than I. My largest experience with difficult markets was the dot-com bust, which wasn't ever really much of a bust for competent IT staff, and this is clearly a whole new world of hurt for everyone, not just the tech industry.
CIO Magazine has an article focusing on the outcomes of the meltdown in the financial sector; it seems certain they are correct that the failure of so many large financial institutions (an IT-heavy industry) will put a lot of technical staff on the streets, skilled and unskilled alike.
The fact that the NASDAQ got hammered particularly hard during today's market plummet may also bode poorly for IT staff; techs from those companies which are hardest hit may also be pounding the streets soon competing for work.
IT hardly becomes irrelevant in hard times; in fact, well-executed IT can be one of the things which best help companies through rough spots. But the problem is that the budget for executing those useful IT projects may be going away, regardless of how useful they might have been. Getting IT done on the cheap might be the next new best skill to have… agile operations and development models may be increasingly relevant, even to the extent of being forced onto organizations which aren't adequately able to predict bugets in the coming months and potentially years of hard times.
Great post… I also enjoyed your other post on “Who says IT is at fault in the financial crisis”.
It seems that in good times IT never gets the credit deserved and in down times IT budgets are one of the first looked to for cuts. But as you said IT does not become irrelevant in tough times – Quite the contrary.
Our COO Joe Kosco wrote a great thought paper the other day titled “IT Strategies In A Tough Economy” that your readers may find interesting. Here is the link http://www.networkautomation.com/documents/it_strategies_in_a_tough_economy.pdf
The current world-wide financial crisis will have a healthy impact on IT. It is my belief that this will accelerate consolidation of IT silos and departments into a more cohesive organizations. One of the ways to save money with shrinking IT budgets is to look for duplication. There is plenty of that in Silo’ed IT. Moreover, silo’ed IT is inherently not solving the big problem, which guarantee that IT indeed provides the svcs that move the *Business* forward. I expect that a new operational paradigm will emerge, which will put the application and business service as the true owners of IT, as the P&L that drives their operations has to “trickle down” to IT operations as well. IT organizations will become internal service providers and will have to compete with out-sourcing computing, networking and application infrastructures. This will accelerate the need to holistic end-to-end management of Business AND IT operations alike. Companies who have solutions that can bridge this gap will be the ones to survive and flourish in this new reality.