Business leadership through technology is often temporary, while that created from human capital tends to become a competitive weapon, says a Gartner analyst.
James Holincheck, an analyst at the international research firm, told ITWeb ahead of a symposium on the IT workforce that the effective management of people within organisations is moving from a compliance issue and becoming a major factor in a competitive environment.
"Technology is a good enabler, but the skills of people, particularly in a diversified workforce, become a competitive advantage," he says.
Holincheck says many countries have implemented various forms of affirmative action to offer people who have been disadvantaged for many reasons an opportunity to effectively compete and benefit from growth industries such as ICT.
"But it goes beyond that. For instance some call centre companies in the US have found it to their advantage if they employ people with similar backgrounds and ethnicity to those in their target markets. It offers more opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell their products," he says.
Holincheck adds that many foreign companies have implemented scorecard-type systems to ensure their suppliers meet various employment equity criteria. He notes that a company located and operating in one country and having its back-office systems in another is effectively operating in two different legal jurisdictions with different employment practices.
Gartner says the main challenge for empowering the workforce is to create systems that enable great people management in the face of massive changes in terms of the structure, work, relationships and culture of modern organisations.
The firm says five forces serve as a powerful backdrop for workforce management through the next decade. These are- global sourcing, IT automation, consumer technologies such as PDAs and Skype, business reconfigurations due to globalisation, and increasing workforce diversity.
"These also represent opportunities to adapt to the changing requirements of the workforce and increase worker productivity, with IT playing a central role," Gartner says.
This year`s Gartner ITxpo Symposium is entitled "The changing face of the IT workforce", and will be held in Cape Town from 1 to 3 August.
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