The Digital Talent Gap: The Rise of Demand For Digital Skills
Blog: Capgemini CTO Blog
The digital talent gap can be considered as the disparity between the supplies of qualified people with expertise in a range of fields and higher demand. There is no doubt that digital transformation is rapidly engulfing the world; the discrepancy in skills needed to match innovation is an ever-growing pothole in the road to contemporary business success. Our Digital Transformation Institute’s (DTI) recent research with MIT found that 77% of companies believe that insufficient digital skills constitute a key obstacle to their digital transformation. Source. From a talent and capability perspective, a business’s ability to adapt and grow in the current landscape depends on circumventing the digital talent gap and obtaining the resources required to flourish. A lack of consideration to marry technological innovation or transformation with a digitally adept workforce is myopic in any given business or industry. To be competitive and thrive, business leaders must address their key capabilities, be they social media, digital advertising or marketing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, SEO, mobile, or advanced analytics.
With demand for digital skills increasing (in tandem with the complexity of these digital skill sets), how can we respond? There are essentially two clear options for capability uplift. There is the acquisition route of hiring digitally skilled workers—which is no easy task given that demand can be so high and supply so low (especially in niche areas of expertise). The other option is to invest in educating the current workforce—which, despite the cost implications, considers the long term while empowering and upskilling employees. A tailored approach that combines these options is likely to be most efficacious.
Capgemini Consulting adeptly combines both options to meet our long-term objectives. We are the first consulting firm in the world with a Digital Certification program. We recently launched our “DigiCertifi” program, which enables our consultants to identify, stretch, and test their digital skills and knowledge through a series of custom-made training, knowledge-based exams, and, naturally, hands-on experience through working on digital transformation projects. There are varying grades of digital capability that help us track our expertise and assess any gaps. As a market leader in digital consulting this investment in our workforce will strengthen our offering to our clients and enable our consultants to deliver to the highest possible level. Oh, and we do the odd bit of hiring too.
Read Capgemini’s and LinkedIn’s joint research report on the Digital Talent Gap:
The Digital Talent Gap—Are Companies Doing Enough?
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