[kictanet] FW: Shortage of IT staff in SA------------Standard Bank

[Kagwe James]

Please check it out.....Would someone tell them to and recruit in
Kenya...

 

________________________________

 

Business Day (Johannesburg)

21 June 2007
Posted to the web 21 June 2007

Johannesburg

THE Standard Bank is expanding its recruitment campaigns to suck in 
talent from India because it cannot find enough information 
technology staff locally. It has up to 100 vacancies to fill 
instantly and will need 300 recruits by the end of the year, 
including programmers, project managers and business analysts. Last 
year it hired 600 IT staff, and its total of 2500 means its in-house 
IT department eclipses many of SA's specialist IT groups.

"The shortage isn't breaking us," says its chief information officer, 
Jorg Fischer, but he is tired of postponing new IT projects because 
of a staff shortage.

"We want to try to complement our IT shop with Indian resources. We 
are always looking at the South African market, and we need to look 
beyond our borders," he says.

"It will give me another option for how to solve IT or business 
issues, instead of saying I don't have the people to do it. I want to 
make us more flexible and nimble so IT doesn't become a bottleneck in 
delivering."

As some technologies approach the end of their life, the bank will 
request proposals from Indian companies to maintain and support those 
applications. That will let the in-house technicians be reassigned to 
develop new applications to take the bank forward.

It should also give them a better career path and more interesting 
work, so they do not seek brighter prospects elsewhere.

The first tenders should be issued in the third or fourth quarter of 
this year and will target companies including Tata Consulting and 
Satyam, which already have operations in SA.

One example is the testing and integration of new software, which 
demands a large staff complement. That could be outsourced to Indian 
workers who could either be brought into SA or could conduct the 
testing processes remotely.

If projects to develop new systems also run into local skills 
shortages, technicians could be recruited from India. As part of the 
job description they would be expected to train South Africans 
working alongside them.

No-go areas for outsourcing will be designing the bank's IT 
architecture, project management and business analysis. 

The idea was inspired by what is becoming a common practice for 
financial services organisations in the US and Europe. Although they 
mainly outsource to cut their costs, the Standard Bank will do 
it "because we don't have the people and the skills available," 
Fischer says.

He expects many other local firms will follow suit to combat the 
skills crunch. The number of students studying IT at universities in 
SA, Europe and the US has decreased for three years, so the skills 
base is depleting. In comparison, India pumps out about 400000 IT 
graduates a year.

The bank hires many temporary contractors from the personnel provider 
Paracon, but Paracon has told Fischer it needs another 1000 
technicians to fill all the vacancies facing its customers. Its chief 
financial officer, Mireille Levenstein, says: "We have never been in 
such a situation where there is so much demand for IT skills, and the 
supply isn't there."

Paracon also looks to India for relief, and is flying in technicians 
after acquiring 34,6% of India's Nihilent Technologies last year.

Growth consultancy Frost & Sullivan analyst Lindsey McDonald says 
SA's skills shortage is reaching chronic proportions and fuelling the 
trend for outsourcing. Yet the third-party service providers are also 
struggling to attract and retain skilled staff.

"In order to build a reserve of skilled personnel, service providers 
should show higher levels of commitment to skills development," she 
says.

A report by the Economic Intelligence Unit shows that India's quality 
of service and low costs make it the destination of choice for 
outsourcing application development and management.

Countries such as Brazil and Russia are ramping up their outsourcing 
capabilities to become more attractive to foreign customers, but 
research by Accenture says the cost benefits and experience to be 
found in India are often too large to ignore



-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others? 
.........Martin Luther King, Jr. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "KAZI-AFRICA" group. 
To post to this group, send email to kaziafrica at googlegroups.com 
To subscribe , send email to kaziafrica-subscribe at googlegroups.com 
To unsubscribe, send email to kaziafrica-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com 
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/kaziafrica?hl=en 
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

 

________________________________

No need to miss a message. Get email on-the-go
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=43910/*http:/mobile.yahoo.com/mail> 
with Yahoo! Mail for Mobile. Get started.
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=43910/*http:/mobile.yahoo.com/mail> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/pipermail/kictanet/attachments/20070625/c25f3224/attachment.htm>