South Africa's chronic shortage of matriculants who are armed with science, maths and technology has paved the way for enterprising young people who have the right academic background to enter the world of technology.
This is the word from Sydney Ramutla, regional chief executive of the Johannesburg regional office at South Africa's leading provider of outsourced IT solutions, Business Connexion.
He says there is currently a chronic shortage of top SAP programme managers in South Africa. At the same time, there is an overwhelming demand for SAP skills, as companies strive to drive business value out of their implementations. This combination of factors has put good programmers in the unique position of writing their own pay cheques.
"There is huge opportunity for young people with a good grounding in maths, science and technology to explore careers in IT," says Ramutla. "However, the run on SAP skills won't last forever. I would advise matriculants who are interested in entering the industry to train themselves up in business before they commit to doing a technical diploma.
"The inter-relationship between business and IT is undergoing a radical transformation, which requires that young people who will become relevant in IT must arm themselves with degrees in business management and engineering first. Historically, opportunity in IT was limited to technicians, programmers and/or managers.
"Today, business is more sophisticated and is demanding higher levels of maturity from its IT partners. They are looking to the industry for consultants who can understand the requirements of business and who will deliver a technological solution that will drive business success. This shift means the industry needs a new breed of IT person: people who realise what technology can do and bring it to business in a way that will help business to maximise its investment.
"The opportunity for young people entering the field of technology is unlimited and will remain so for many years to come. We expect there to be a boom in technology in 2007 and 2008, which will outstrip that experienced in 2000. It will be more intense and sustainable than anything we have experienced in the past.
"I expect this to be led by two key factors. Firstly, the deregulation of telecommunications will lead to businesses demanding a different set of solutions. The move towards the on-demand model, which has seen companies (or consumers) moving away from owning the technology and towards buying capacity or 'air time', is the second contributory factor.
"The scope is huge, and ambitious matriculants could be facing an exciting future in IT," he says.
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