When I graduated several years ago, I spoke to one of my senior who was well established in IT industry seeking some advice. He gave me a simple but valuable advice, choose one technology and try to master it. I verified it with several others and adopted. During several years of my career, I realized that I got right advice. After several years, when I get same question from my own sister who just graduated and seeking a career in IT industry, I am a bit skeptical passing same advice to her. But I have to give her some advice to help plan her career in information technology. After doing some research, I realized that it’s worth for everyone who wants to stay alive and succeed in this throat cutting competitive IT industry environment. Keep reading and you will understand the point.
Developing and building IT systems is a complex, time consuming and expensive affair. It starts with identifying the business problem, envisioning the solution through available technologies and the starting build process. Finally it goes into an iterative enhancement and maintenance process for years. This process and life span of software is approximately 15 to 20 years unless there are massive disruptive changes. During these 15-20 years, society, businesses, problems and technology keep changing. During those long 10-15 years of iterative enhancement and maintenance phase, we keep trying to address social, business, regulatory and technological changes. But there is a saturation and limit to accommodate things into an existing but complex system. All developments which happened during 15-20 years aggregate and together they create a disruptive change forcing us to restart from beginning i.e. redefining business problem, envisioning the solution through available technologies.
Those who don’t identify it and react aggressively are left behind, be it business houses or individual professionals. Now we need to examine, what are those changes which together have created disruption and eroded 15-20 year old vision of software solution. Let’s understand status of top things from today’s world 20 years back.
- Internet: Was it working at todays speed? Were there users like today?
- Mobile: What was mobile penetration? Was there smart phones? Was internet available on Mobile?
- Search Engine: Was it there or working at todays speed?
- Social Media: Was it there?
- Cloud computing: Was it there?
- Open Source: What was available under that umbrella?
- Data: How much data we were generating? Were there machines generating data?
There are many more, you just open your mind, look around, check your daily life, your expectations and compare it with your previous generation. You will realize that world has already transformed and further transforming rapidly.
The buzzword in industry is SMAC i.e. Social media, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud computing. Let’s define them first.
Social media: Every enterprise is forced to have a social media strategy, be it bank, retailer, political houses or the government. Over one billion individuals are logged on to various social networks and now they are using it to discuss on what to buy, where to buy, who to vote for, which services, what is good or bad, which company to work for etc. Companies have also started using social media for customer service functions, sales and marketing. Data generated by pool of customers on these social media is enabling businesses to effectively align their product and services and also help in research and development functions.
Mobility: Mobile devices have changed the way people access digital content. Smartphones and tablets have brought rich, digital content to the fingertips of consumers. Mobile banking has emerged as one of the most innovative products in the financial services industry. Shoppers are increasingly using their mobile devices for everything from browsing to comparing to buying products. Governments are also reaching out to their citizens, using mobile devices as an efficient channel. Enterprises must also jump on to the mobility bandwagon, and ensure that their applications are mobile ready.
Analytics: Every year, companies and individuals generate billions of gigabytes of data. Data, which properly analyzed and used in time, can emerge as an unbeatable competitive advantage. Enterprises need to recognize the prospect analytics represents and should adapt their IT strategy to capture such opportunities’. Analytics can help retailers predict buying decisions of shoppers; it can help banks weed out fraudulent transactions; while governments can use analytics to provide services directly to their citizens. Predictive analytics has also been adopted across industries in various scenario building activities.
Cloud computing: Cloud computing has brought the power to foster innovations and improve productivity and is now accepted by business houses. While the financial services and government sectors are mostly moving to a private cloud model due to information security concerns, other industries like healthcare and retail have adopted public cloud. Moreover, their existing infrastructure has helped telecom players to emerge as providers of cloud computing.
Disruption brings problems and opportunities both. It’s up to us, how we prepared ourselves. Are companies reacting to this disruption? Just Google it and you will discover the truth. I have placed some links below to showcase news from top players in India be it TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Tech Mahindra or Cognizant.
So, companies are definitely gearing up, are you?
Coming back to original question which my sister as a fresh graduate asked “What’s that which I should align myself through learning to progress and succeed in current and future market of professional services in IT industry?”
This question is equally valid for a novice and an experienced professional. Old solutions, if can’t be transformed to take challenges of new world will be thrown away and replaced by new solutions then why not professionals? Get ready to be replaced by or get started to SMAC.
