CA Southern Africa yesterday hosted the 2012 edition of its IT Management Symposium Africa, at the Sandton Convention Centre.
In its second year, the event, themed “IT at the speed of business”, attracted close to 700 delegates. There were 15 international speakers lined up to share their knowledge in IT service management.
Opening the symposium, Gary Lawrence, MD of CA Southern Africa, noted that the theme of this year's conference speaks to the challenges most CIOs and IT professionals are faced with today.
“We felt that there was a need to help our clients to make use of IT as a competitive differentiator,” said Lawrence. “Today, there are companies that are even using mobile applications as competitive differentiators.”
Therefore, he added, there is no better time to be in the IT services market than now.
He also pointed out that the event focuses on trends and innovations that will allow businesses to drive IT by leveraging new technologies and cloud to meet the needs of the business; free up resources by improving efficiency and managing complexity; as well as reduce the risk of data breach, improper access and fraud.
Lawrence also revealed that the symposium comes at a time when CA Southern Africa - a member of the EOH group of companies - saw the first batch of graduates from its IT training academy.
He noted that the academy seeks to address the perennial IT skills shortage SA is faced with.
While companies and organisations are thirsty for highly skilled employees to meet their growth targets and transformation goals, Lawrence noted, the country's education system is facing challenges in churning out large numbers of graduates who can immediately fill the positions, making it imperative for private enterprises to bridge the skills gap.
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