Back from the long holiday weekend (and I hope you enjoyed the interviews), and I could start with AI. Instead, I will romp through some valuable data about provider operations.
A survey by job messaging site Blind reveals that nearly 45% of the over 8,400 respondents said they’re productive about four hours or fewer per day, with the largest portion of voters saying they worked about four hours per day. Only about 25% of respondents said they worked eight hours or more daily.
A survey by QuoteWerks finds that well over half (58 percent) have increased their suppliers over the past three years, with 26 percent keeping the number of vendors they work with the same and 16 percent reducing them. Nearly half of the respondents (49 percent) also procured more than $100,000 worth of hardware, compared to 42 percent that procured between $25,000 and $100,000—however, 53 percent of transactions involved less than $3,000. The number of survey respondents that can reduce the time required to provide customers with a quote to just under an hour is 20 percent, compared with 40 percent, which requires two to three hours.
How about a cloud study? This one is by MSP Aptum. More than 90 percent of respondents see the expected efficiencies of cloud adoption. Still, they continue to grapple with the costs and complexities of using a combination of legacy systems, private cloud, and public cloud services. Seventy percent stated that cloud costs are higher than expected. Last year, that figure was the same; only 20 percent had a comprehensive approach to cloud management and costs. The efficiencies of multi-cloud environments barely outweigh the costs. Just over half (51 percent) of respondents said the cloud is a vital part of their strategy to weather the costs of the ongoing economic downturn.
I’ll note some reporting in the Wall Street Journal that highlights the struggle for job hunting — Supply is down: US job postings have dropped by ~500k since 2022. Demand is up: The market’s flooded with experienced candidates following two layoff-packed years — tech firms alone have shed ~363k roles since last year. Companies are taking longer to make their picks, per WSJ, with hiring now averaging 11 weeks, up from seven weeks in 2021. That’s taking its toll on candidates, who’ve seen the norm increase from one or two interview rounds to an average of three to four.
Some data on what CIOs do to redistribute IT work. More than 4 in 5 CIOs and IT leaders are reskilling workers to execute digital strategies, according to the 2023 Gartner Resilient Workforce Model of the Future Survey. Executives are also looking within the company to find what Gartner calls “business technologists,” or non-IT employees with IT-related skills, like data scientists working in finance, and “untapped technologists,” who are employees with IT-related skills who don’t use them at work.
Gartner found that nearly 3 in 5 CIOs tap into these skilled workers for IT projects as well.
Finally, pay is going down for tech workers. According to an analysis of securities filings by the Information, the median pay for employees declined in 2022 in at least 18 well-known tech companies. At two companies—Snap and Cloudflare—median pay declined more than 30%. Median income increased at many companies last year, including Salesforce. Recruiting company Dice said the average salary for tech professionals increased by 2.3% to $111,348 in 2022.
I considered the gap between what workers can do –four hours a day of focused work – and the requirements many providers put on teams for billable hours or utilization. That feels pivotal, and the perspective on the rest.
IT is being asked to do more with less, finding fewer people despite more candidates being paid less for more complicated problems. If considering people, processes, and products within a business, this is distinctly a process problem. I’m concerned that too many will focus on a tool solution here when instead, it’s a re-examination of how services are delivered entirely.
Providers must reduce complexity while simultaneously addressing increasingly complex problems, and throwing more people at it won’t help. The delicate balance to be found to relieve pressure on your teams while making them capable of doing more. I never said it would be easy.