The gap between the number of people with the appropriate skills for your e-commerce project, and the reality of having to get it all up and running as quickly as possible, continues to widen. David Hellaby assesses what this means for companies recruiting staff, and how to find the skills you really need.
If research is correct, companies are scrambling to find the staff they need for their e-commerce projects. Last year the Business Council of Australia (BCA) estimated there would be a 90,000 shortfall in the number of graduates with e-commerce skills over the next four to five years.
Last year, there was already an estimated 30,000 shortfall in skilled IT workers and the situation was predicted to get worse. That was before the economic downturn in the US, which was partially spurred on by the dot-com crash.
Since then, some sectors of the IT industry have gone into decline as the global economic conditions took their toll. However, the general consensus among recruitment agencies is that while the skills shortage is no longer at crisis level, it is still hard to find good e-commerce skillsâ€"and it is not going to get any better in the short term.
While one Melbourne agencyâ€"which did not want to be publicly identifiedâ€"said the dot-com collapse meant there were now plenty of skilled people available, others in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane disagreed. Although Sydney and Melbourne have experienced some easing in demand, Brisbane employers are reported to be scrambling to find any skilled staff and the situation is getting tougher by the week. As the economy picks up, so too will the demand, and recruiters are predicting a renewed surge in the market in the fourth quarter as companies resume their shelved or paused e-commerce programs.
Companies under pressure
Non-technology companies are under increasing pressure to have an e-commerce presence, but they face more problems than just a shortage of skills.
E-commerce is not just about putting up a Web site. It requires its own well-designed business plan that will integrate and enhance a company's core business. It has to have project goals and proper management as well as a broad range of skills, and that invariably means having to employ more than one person. E-commerce requires a combination of business and IT skills and it is that combination that is such a rare commodity.
Ideally, companies look for people with five to six years experience, but in Australia that does not exist because e-commerce has not been around for that long. So companies are being forced to compromise and often to accept less experienced workers, or to review the project and outsource it. Even once the site is up and running they are faced with the question of whether to employ someone with the skills to maintain it or to train existing staff.
Short-term solutions?
The problems faced by companies are not going to go away in the short term. And they are worse for the non-tech companies that are often at an added disadvantage because they are not conversant with the technology they require and are therefore in danger of employing the wrong people.
That can be both disastrous in terms of the finished product and extremely expensive in terms of lost investment in both personnel and infrastructure.
Last year's study by the BCA which looked at the problems faced, found that as of June 2000 nearly 58,000 businesses with a Web site (56 per cent of all businesses with a Web site) reported not being satisfied with their Web site's e-commerce or e-business functionality. According to the study, much of that dissatisfaction was caused by a lack of e-commerce skills by the people responsible for the sites.
A pox on this continued garbage of a "skills shortage". There are thousands of skilled I.T. people who used to live in Australia, who are now working elsewhere in the world. Why? Because the "managers" in Australia get the latest technology but REFUSE to train anybody, and expect fully skilled people to roll up to their door. People with experience, who'd take a couple of days to get on with the job, are refused by know-nothing "agents" who demand "must have". Result? an unemployed person, and a client screaming "skills shortage". And if you're over 40, you're a dinosaur, can't do this new stuff. Absolutely pathetic!
Explain to me why there is not a "skills shortage" in Europe, and why there are Australians working over here? Yes, I am one of them.
The sooner the recruitment "industry" is dispensed with, the sooner this lunacy will dissipate, and then maybe Australia will become an I.T. country, instead of the global idiot!
I despair.