The second largest business sector (by number of employees) is currently the information and communications technology industry (ICT). With around one million employees, the sector is just behind mechanical engineering.
According to the industry association Bitkom, 43,000 IT posts are currently vacant in the face of the continued positive development on the IT labour market. “The job prospects for IT professionals are excellent, and the growth in the number of jobs will continue in the current fiscal year,” says Juliane Petrich, head of education policy and the labour market at Bitkom.
Not only the ICT sector itself has seen a rising number of vacancies due to the growing requirements of digitisation; IT professionals are also being increasingly sought in industries such as banking, manufacturing, healthcare and other sectors to meet the needs of the digital transformation.
Companies are actively searching for digital professionals
Nowadays, companies are increasingly looking for IT specialists for positions involved in the support of digitisation. From lead architects or cybersecurity managers, all the way up to fully-fledged digitisation professionals (CDO, etc.). And that is most likely the reason why exactly these positions are highly sought after by IT managers. Here, CIOs see the greatest potential for professional development.
Changing roles are creating new job profiles
Along with the new requirements, the necessary competencies and soft skills have also changed for IT specialists and executives. Good IT specialists/executives are capable of finding their feet quickly, on the basis of existing and newly acquired knowledge, in new subject areas and in the face of new requirements and employ a solution-oriented approach. Furthermore, they exhibit high levels of empathy and a good sense for different situations and people. Competent specialists/executives work through problems and take the necessary steps. The balancing act between business and innovation is mastered. Anyone who is looking to follow a new career path should bring precisely these skills.
Due to the increased professionalisation of the ICT sector, as well as its products, it is often difficult to for career changers to gain a foothold, because expertise is a prerequisite.
Requirements for managers and teams
Digitisation leads to increased demands, not only on companies but on all employees. In particular, a high willingness to learn when it comes to discovering and evaluating the possibilities and implementing initiatives is required. The ability to efficiently implement larger numbers of complex issues in parallel is a key success factor even for small teams. Agile working methods support efficient cooperation and continuous improvement. Alongside financial expertise, the key competencies are a strong customer focus and communication skills, especially technical understanding and experience of software and digital processes in companies of different sizes. Proper prioritisation, smart, efficient working practices, and self-organization are as indispensable as self-confident and interdepartmental cooperation and new ideas to better solve existing challenges.
Comfort zone was yesterday – digital change is today
The most successful teams see changes due to digitisation as an opportunity, not a threat. They have fun developing new things for internal and external customers, in simplifying cumbersome processes and making them more efficient, or analysing complex relationships in large quantities of data. And they are also able to achieve very good results in uncertain and changing environments.
Conclusion:
The success of digitisation in companies depends on the employees. They should be appropriately involved in the digitisation processes and also supported at every stage.
