The IT Beacon

On the Sell Side: If you can't deliver value.....

Currently in Germany on a consulting assignment. Earlier on today I was sitting in a meeting that was being conducted in German. Not speaking the local tongue, I was listening intently to at least get the context of the discussion.

.....ROI..........payback.........CIO....... etc.

And then, from an ex (and very wise) COO of Deutsche Telekom, "....If you can't deliver value, deliver discount.......".

That summed it up perfectly for me. If you are selling IT products and services and there is nothing remarkable about you that the CIO values, then you better go armed with a calculator.

And make sure in advance that the percentage button works.

e-Skills: Beware the Asians are coming!

As you, your children and / or your grandchildren work their way through school and university, there will be occasional glances around the classroom at what is thought to be the competition.

The more ambitious students will adjust their efforts accordingly to ensure that their genes land the best job when they enter the world of work.

In my view this won’t be enough. The real competition is largely invisible. They live further East. And they are being nurtured from the cot to be highly valuable economic contributors.

Picture an army of tech-savvy (meaning more than just having the ability to add plugins to Facebook), street smart and value focused professionals heading resolutely to the front of the interview queue that you or your offspring are standing in to secure the job. This is as it should be of course, because they are in fact the best candidate.

So rather than wait for the knowledge tsunami to flood Western Europe, prepare. We are all on the same planet and globalisation will inevitably mean we are competing for the same jobs.

But rather than being xenophobic, be grateful that there is such focused competition, as this invariably brings the best out in all of us.

e-skills: Forget maths and science

There's a big push to create more mathematicians and scientists. We need these people to drive the European economy. But we don't need them in IT.

In fact the last thing we need is more propeller-heads. The IT industry needs to get its act together in terms of:

• Where it sits in the value chain
• Its PR

Recruiting more high IQ reasoning machines is not what the industry needs.

I know this for a fact. I was trained as an astrophysicist. It was a long time ago, when the 'in vogue' and controversial at the time theory around the faculty was that the earth was not at the centre of the universe. So I have had some time to partially reengineer my own DNA.

Bottom line we need creativity and innovation in the IT industry not carbon-based computer extensions.

e-Skills: 90% of EU jobs with require ICT skills

I was invited by Microsoft earlier this week to the launch of their IDC produced white paper on 'Skilling Europe for Innovation, Sustainable Growth and Employment in the 21st Century'. This took place at their Executive Briefing Centre in Brussels.

Circa 30 EU e-skills thought leaders attended the associated dinner debate including Dr Eva Udden Sonnegard, the Swedish State Secretary, who presented a compelling case for the EU to raise its game in respect of the attention its gives to e-skills.

One of the remarkable facts that emerged from the white paper was that in five years time only 10% of jobs in the EU will NOT require ICT skills. In other words, ICT can be added to reading, writing and arithmatic as the fourth entry-level competence needed to enter the world of employment.

This has serious implications for those that work beyond the IT function. And for those that have become decoupled from the world of work.

What do you think?

Click here for the white paper.

TescO2 – Every little (megabyte) helps

Retail giant Tesco looks set to strengthen its hi-tech footprint by selling Apple iPhones. Tesco-Mobile, a joint venture with UK operator O2, hopes to start selling the must have wireless fashion accessory by Christmas.  Given the amount of money I get charged by O2 every time I go abroad, I suspect that this will be a lucrative channel for Tesco. It will be interesting to see how this shapes the iPhone’s future. From a cachet perspective, this is a retrograde step. But a major result from a product proliferation perspective. So is Apple abandoning its loyal aesthete following? Or can we expect a new range of exclusive beautiful overpriced gadgets to keep the tribe happy?