The dearth of specialised IT skills is beginning to impede companies' financial performances and strategies.
This week both ISA Holdings and InfoWave Holdings cited the skills shortage as a constraint to growth. ISA said its modest 3.9% revenue growth for the six months to 31 August was achieved "despite management's distraction caused by the challenge of addressing the scarcity of skills within our sector".
Tiffany Dunsdon, CEO of Durban-based InfoWave, said in commentary on the company's results yesterday, also for the six months to end-August: "A continued shortage of IT skills in the market has constrained growth while we have had a significant demand for project work. A high level of focus is being placed on resourcing solutions to ensure delivery to our clients."
Like ISA, Datacentrix, which released its results yesterday, has also been experiencing higher than usual staff turnover rates.
"In the last year to year-and-a-half, the competition for good people has increased," says CEO Gerhard Uys. "We are battling to find people in certain instances - it's obviously an industry-wide issue. The demand is bigger than the supply."
Possible consolidation
Uys describes attracting and retaining good people as one of the company's biggest challenges, and Datacentrix intends to work "very hard" at that.
An industry analyst says there is a possibility the skills shortage may lead to another wave of consolidation in the IT sector as companies seek to buy other firms for their skills base.
EOH Interim Talent (formerly EOH Abantu), the labour-broking arm of JSE-listed EOH Holdings, announced last month it had acquired ePrime Consulting, bringing to the group at least 50 SAP contractors, whose skills are in short supply. The company said at the time that it planned to make further acquisitions.
Datacentrix, which has in the past shunned acquisitive expansion in favour of organic growth, yesterday told the market it had identified some small potential acquisitions "in certain pockets" that would allow it to expand into complementary markets. The company was continuing to look for other acquisitions.
Chief operating officer Ahmed Mahomed says Datacentrix's strategy remained fixed on organic growth, but given the shortage of skills, it would take too long to grow organically into new areas, thus the need for acquisitions.
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