IT Training 2.0: Traditional Tech Skills Get Outdated

Organizations losing sleep over widening skills gap in digital Skills gap has always been a pressing issue in the tech industry and it has widened further in today’s digital era. It’s a fact that keeping the fingers on the pulse of the ever-changing technology landscape is not an easy task, not even for the IT leaders. A growing number of IT workers in the organizations also fear that their skill sets are becoming redundant faster.

But missing an opportunity can cause businesses to play catch-up while spotting the emerging technology trends and embracing them early can help organizations to get a competitive edge over others. A Capgemini and LinkedIn joint research report shows that  despite having the highest proportion of digital talent(76 per cent), more than half of the organizations in India (64 per cent) today believe that the digital talent gap is hampering their transformation programs and that their organization has lost competitive advantage because of a shortage of digital talent.

Business leaders are aware of the talent gap and hence recognize the need to put talent development front and centre in their growth strategy.

Market Dynamics

The digital transformation activities within the organizations has created a number of Digital roles and spurred the demands for a number of digital skills like mobile app development, UI/UX, Big Data analytics, Cloud, Internet of Things, robotics process automation, Artificial intelligence/machine learning/Natural Language Processing, Augmented Reality/ Virtual Reality, cyber security, etc.

But switching to digital products and services is not easy as they often struggle to find enough people with the skills they need- which is why the market is seeing a surge in training and retraining efforts among the organizations.

As image 2 and image 3 show, the talent gap in the organizations are evident in terms of soft digital skills as well as hard digital skills. The two soft skills that are in most demand are customer-centricity and passion for learning, while the greatest gap exists for comfort with ambiguity and collaboration. Also more than half of organizations face a greater talent shortage in two hot digital skills, i.e. cybersecurity and cloud computing.

Vendor Play

Some of the key IT skills development companies in the market are NIIT, Aptech, Jetking, Skillsoft, Simplilearn, LearnQuest, Edureka, Pluralsight, Udacity, InfoSec Institute, NetCom Learning, ONLC, New Horizons, Coursera, Udemy, etc.

In today’s fast-changing, uncertain business environment, organizations need talents skilled in digital technologies, and a talent pipeline with the capability to deliver specifically skilled talents ‘Just-in-Time’ can be really helpful for them. NIIT’s Talent Pipeline as a Service (TPaaS) ensures reliable availability of specifically skilled talent to organizations. It encompasses all aspects involved in onboarding new talent, including talent acquisition, talent orientation, onboarding, and integration.

NIIT created bespoke career programs for leading corporates in the IT and BFSI sectors as per their business needs. It formed a strategic relationship with AI-powered Knowledge Cloud provider, EdCast. The two companies will collaborate in the areas of corporate training and consulting, learning management and administration, and content management and creation for businesses around the world.

NIIT also unveiled a series of aspirational Career Programs guided by the choices of the industry to address the changing workforce needs that digital transformation has brought forth. For the undergraduates and graduates, it has created aspirational programs in digital marketing & branding, data analytics & predictive modelling, financial services & futuristic IT streams. Training.com, a multi-modal learning platform by NIIT along with IIM Calcutta announced has built a portfolio of over 148 advanced courses including programs in Digital Marketing, Technology, Data Science, etc.

Market Outlook

As per a study estimate by ResearchAndMarkets.com, the global IT training market is likely to grow at 5.66 per cent CAGR during 2018-2022. e-learning will be a major growth driver in the market for the flexibility as well as the cost-effectiveness of it in comparison to traditional learning methods.

Designing an effective and relevant training programme in a rapidly evolving digital era, however, pose a serious challenge to the IT training providers. Although there’s nothing wrong with the traditional learning methods with books, audios, videos, and podcasts, but in this era of personalized experiences, it has become crucial for the training solution providers to embrace new technologies such as analytics, AI, AR/VR for a hyper-personalized and immersive learning experience and to create an effective learning path for the learners as well.

One of the pioneers in this aspect is the AI startup volley.com. It has developed a knowledge engine to generate, synthesize, and recommend personalized content for learning and knowledge management applications, which is now being used by organizations to identify knowledge gaps in their workforce and design personalized learning solutions accordingly for them.

AR and VR, on the other hand, can be extremely useful for hands-on training in various aspects such as safety training in emergency settings, or shop floor management, etc.