1. Acquire New and Hot IT Skills
Buy, borrow, rent, or steal...well, don’t steal, just retrain and redeploy.

2. Introduction
New technologies means that IT needs new skills. When the new skills aren’t available in-house, it’s time to start looking outside.
This Research Is Designed For:
This Research Will Help You:
IT shops trying to decide between hiring new employees, hiring contract staff, or outsourcing to a third party.
Forward thinking IT leaders who want to get a jump on hiring and/or IT organizational design.
Infrastructure managers looking to acquire new skills for cloud computing, security, and mobility.
Applications managers looking to acquire skills in data management and social media.
Future-proof your IT department.
Plan now for the skills that will be hot and hard to acquire two years from now.
Find the most effective way to acquire external skills into the IT organization.
Mitigate the challenges of adding new skill sets to the IT team.

3. Executive Summary The Situation
Info-Tech has identified five trends that promise to transform IT departments within the next two years.
Changes in mobility, cloud, big data, social media, and security will alter the way IT functions within the business.
IT must acquire skills in these five areas within the next two years, or risk running into a skills deficit.
The Challenge
There are key factors that will dictate how you will find these skills: urgency, importance, novelty, scarcity, and cost.
Your options for acquiring these new skills include redeploying and retraining existing staff, hiring new staff, contracting, and outsourcing.
The Solution
When the required skills are not available in-house, hire new staff if the skills are needed for long-term projects. Otherwise, weigh the benefits of contracting or outsourcing for mid- and short-term projects.
Info-Tech Recommends
These five major trends are creating new roles or emphasizing existing roles that IT leaders may not have considered before.
Mobility - MDM Specialist and Mobile Developer are two roles in mobility that will come to the forefront within the next year.
Cloud - The roles of Vendor Portfolio Manager and Data Integration Specialist are being expanded to manage cloud computing.
Big data - Organizations wanting to harness unstructured data need a Database Administrator and Data Architect.
Social media - The emergence of social media has created new roles: Social Analytics Specialist and Collaboration Business Analyst.
Security - The roles of CISO and IT Security Analyst, while not new, need to be prepared to handle new security issues.

4. Acquire new IT skills
Identify the five trends that are transforming IT departments in the next two years.
Understand key factors that influence acquisition decisions.
Acquiring new IT skills
Methods for acquiring new skills
Mobility
Cloud
Big data
Social media
Security

5. Info-Tech has identified five trends that promise to transform IT departments within the next two years
Some organizations will bypass at least one of these trends; however, the odds of being able to evade them all are extremely low.
Mobility. The primary driver of mobility is the proliferation of consumer devices in the business. Users want to perform work activities on their own access devices, be it a Smartphone, a tablet, or an old-fashioned laptop.
Social Analytics/Media. Organizations of all sizes recognize the impact of social media on customer and employee interaction, as well as global brand recognition.
Big Data. Organizations must deal with the growing appetite to take advantage of a new set of data sources. Businesses are looking to harness this potential wealth of information.
Cloud Computing. As disruptive as each of the above trends is, cloud has the greatest potential impact on IT as applications, development, and infrastructure functions all suddenly become candidates for hosting. Further reading: Prepare IT for Increased Cloud Adoption.
Security. Each of the preceding trends directly affects the state of business security by raising new concerns and threats to which IT must be able to respond.

6. The five trends are altering the way IT functions within the business
IT is transforming to place greater emphasis on business analysis and vendor management, rather than on traditional technology silos.
Current
Future
Applications
Infrastructure
Vendor Management
Business Analysis
Applications
Infrastructure
Vendor Management
Business Analysis

7. Where this set fits: When faced with a skills gap, the hiring manager faces three possibilities; acquisition is one of them
Acquiring new skills is one component of workforce planning.
Workforce Planning Essentials
When there is a need for new skills in IT, the hiring manager has three options:
Redeploy or reallocate internal resources whose skill sets are adequate to meet the new need. See Info-Tech’s solution set Redeploy IT Staff to Fill Changing Demands.
Bring new skills into the organization from an outside source, either by hiring, contracting, or outsourcing.
Train internal resources to fill the skills gap. See Info-Tech’s solution set Develop IT Staff Capabilities.
This set focuses on the second scenario: external acquisition of new skills into IT.
1. Redeploy IT Resources
Downsize IT Staff for Future Gain with Minimal Pain
2. Acquire New IT Skills
Deliver Maximum Value with Limited Staff
3. Develop IT Staff Capabilities

8. Cost, urgency, and importance are some of the key factors that influence acquisition decisions
The characteristics of need steer hiring managers to a preferred choice,
while the marketplace analysis will tell you the implications of your choice.
Characteristics:
Urgency. How quickly do we need to add this skill to our team? This month, in the next six months, in the next year?
Importance. Is this skill critical to the day-to-day operation of the business, or is it a project-based or short-term need?
Novelty. Have we looked for this kind of skill before? What is the level of expertise available to be hired?
State of the Marketplace:
Scarcity. How popular or desirable is this skill right now? Do we have a large enough talent pool to draw from?
Cost. How much will it cost to hire vs. contract vs. outsource this skill? Is there a premium attached to hiring this skill?
Acquiring Skills
Cost
Urgency
Importance
Novelty
Scarcity

9. Assess urgency of need to foreshadow cost expectations
Urgency of need is a significant determining factor in skills acquisition.
For projects and business goals that require quick turnaround, urgency will be a leading decision factor in acquisition. Unfortunately, the more urgent the need, the higher the cost of acquisition. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Short-Term Goals
Required within
two to three months
For skill gaps that need to be filled quickly, you may have to hire contract staff or outsource the functionality. Retraining employees to take on urgent skills requires significant effort depending on available skills.
Mid-Term Goals
Required within
six months
With a six-month window, many organizations will choose to hire a new employee, whether full- or part-time.
Long-Term Goals
Required within
the next year
Organizations that have a workforce plan are more likely to be able to anticipate needs further out. In this case, you may be able to train an internal resource to fill the upcoming skill gap.

10. Skills central to day-to-day, in-house operations require day-to-day, in-house expertise
Skill acquisition depends on whether or not the required skill is core to the internal environment.
Questions to ask:
Do you expect this skill to be required by the business for the long term?
Certain technologies will be central to business initiatives and competitive advantage.
Even if the skill need is long-term, do you need a dedicated FTE, or can it be combined with a related role?
This is very dependent on the size of the organization. Many smaller businesses are staffed by employees who wear multiple hats. In large enterprises, skills may be divided into unique roles due to the magnitude of required support.
Has a strategic direction for this area been set?
For any technology area – including the five technology trends outlined earlier – IT must decide on a strategic direction in order to hire the right external resource. An organization may decide that cloud computing will be central to the ongoing success of the organization. In this case, having a person on staff to manage that environment will be critical.
It was well understood that it was important to have this piece [mobility] for the business. I think when you add in the cost of hiring a consulting firm, the minds turn to ‘well, if that’s what it’s going to cost, then maybe we should just go ahead and hire somebody – knowing that we’re going to keep this thing going.’
- Kevin Hohnbaum, IT Consultant, Fifth Gear

11. If the skill is new to your organization, begin by defining what you need as a team
The five trends necessitate new skills and possibly new roles, some of which will be unfamiliar to many organizations.
Setting strategic direction determines importance, as well as the overall business requirements of the skill for your organization. Some roles are not new to IT, but may be new to the business – leverage online employment sources (such as monster.com and workopolis.com) for those roles that are well-established. For example, a growing business may need to hire a project manager or business analyst for the first time.
If the technology area is new, start by looking at similar roles and expand from there. The technology areas below have been identified as trending. For more information on identifying current roles that may match these new skills, see Info-Tech’s solutions set Redeploy IT Staff to Fill Changing Demands.
Mobile
Cloud
Big Data
Social
Security
Required Skills
Fluent in Java, HTML5, Objective-C
Transform business requirements into mobile applications
Collaboration with cross-management
Knowledge of all vendor applications in the cloud
Knowledge of data architecture and systems integration
Relationship management skills
Knowledge of all data and its relationship with business functions
Expert statistical/analytical techniques
Database management
Applications of social media to business strategy
Proficiency in social analytics
Interpersonal, communication, collaboration skills
Knowledge of business processes
Collaboration with all departments
Fluent with company compliance, policies, and risk vulnerability

12. Info-Tech Research Group Helps IT Professionals To:
Quickly get up to speed with new technologies
Make the right technology purchasing decisions – fast
Deliver critical IT projects, on time and within budget
Manage business expectations
Justify IT spending and prove the value of IT
Train IT staff and effectively manage an IT department
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