A strange thing is happening in the Canadian economy. In the simplest terms, it continues to grow at a very competitive rate and most sectors are doing well with the exception of the technology sector.
So what does that mean to us?
Well that depends on which side of the fence you sit. If you’re an IT professional or consulting service, you’ve seen a demand for your services drop and, in many cases, to get what little work is out there, you’ve been forced to lower your rates. So what are we to do? Simply start telling your clients that it’s time to reconsider all those projects that they’ve put on hold, for the reasons contained in this column.
If you’re a business and you’ve been putting off that IT project for whatever reason, it’s time to get the ball rolling and take advantage of the situation. Don’t believe me? Stop and consider the following:
Many projects were placed on the shelf the past year or so because the ROI wasn’t there. However, with dropping rates for IT professionals and hardware manufacturers willing to make deals on just about everything, the cost of implementation has dropped significantly since the original ROI estimations were made. So plug in the new numbers and you might find it makes sense to do it now before rates go up again.
Next, there is a glut of extremely well-trained and qualified IT personnel available who have been laid-off by the big IT shops the past two years. A few years ago, trying to find qualified personnel was nearly impossible. You’d create a wish list of 10 skills and hire someone with six or seven of these requirements. Now you can create a list of 20 requirements and find several people with all requirements. This means you can staff up and be ready to roll in no time flat.
In a nutshell, business can take advantage by acting and implementing projects for less money and with better-qualified staff (in theory this should either allow the project to be built faster or better). This is a significant positive impact on the project’s ROI. And to the IT professional, by explaining the changes in the market place to your clients, you start looking better then ever and perhaps might even get them to kick-off a project or two.
So let’s get back to work and stop thinking about the busted IT bubble. That’s ancient history and today is another day.
K’necht is a Toronto-based consultant specializing in the project management and business analysis of technology projects. He is a frequent speaker at technology conferences and can be reached at alan@knechtology.com