Flexible IT workforce

The future of IT includes a flexible workforce that combines business and technical skills to solve business problems and increase value.

As technology and business become one strategy, there is a rapid realization that technology drives or enables almost every business function. The result is an extensive, inextricably intertwined IT function that converges business and technical skills to act as the connective tissue and “brain” behind connecting the entire enterprise. It requires both business and IT leaders to think differently and consider multiple dimensions when making decisions.

This represents a radical shift in the role of the IT function from operational “doer” to strategic “enabler” of business strategy. As a result, forward-looking leaders must focus on building a technology-centric workforce. One that goes beyond working only within the IT organization; where people with technology skills are mapped more closely to business problems and measured on their ability to drive business value. Doing so will create a flexible IT workforce that can operate at market speed and be as innovative as the technologies that permeate their enterprise.

Perhaps the biggest shift will be recognizing that IT's largest asset and risk is not technology, but people.

No other executive role is undergoing so much change as the CIO, which brings the opportunity to be truly transformational for the organization and the person occupying it.

Download The flexible IT workforce – How the nexus of talent, skills, and leadership is forging the future of IT (PDF 1.5 MB) to learn more about the IT workforce of the future and read our two-page overview (PDF 156 KB).