Digital business to drive 500% boost in digital jobs by 2018: IoT, robotics will be the hottest IT skills

IT spending in India is projected to total $73.3 billion in 2015, a 9.4 percent increase from the $67.1 billion forecast for 2014, according to Gartner, Inc.“India is forecast to be the third largest IT market within the Asia/Pacific region by the end of 2016 and will further progress to become the second largest market for IT by the end of 2018,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research.

“Much of the growth from being the number four market in Asia/Pacific to number three is likely to happen in 2015.”

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While discussing the latest outlook for the IT industry, Sondergaard saidIT services willrecord the strongest revenue growth at 15.7 percent in 2015; software will grow at 14 percent. Devices will continue to account for the second largest part of the market with 33 percent share of revenue and will grow 12.6 percent in 2015.

The telecommunication services segment will account for 39.3 percent of the Indian ICT market and it is set to grow at 4.2 percent revenue growth in 2015

“IT spending in India is on pace to increase 2.9 percent this year, primarily on the back of strong growth within the IT services and software, which will grow 10.5 percent and 9.6 percent,” said Partha Iyengar, distinguished analyst and Gartner India head of research.

In 2014, mobile devices will grow 13.5 percent, and will dislodge mobile voice services to be the largest segment within the overall IT market in India. Mobile data services will be the fastest growing segment in India, growing 18.2 percent in 2014. Telecommunication services that will account for 41.4 percent of overall IT spend, and it will decline 0.7 percent in 2014.

“The impact that the digital business economy is having on the IT industry is dramatic. Since 2013, 650 million new physical objects have come online. 3D printers became a billion dollar market; 10 percent of automobiles became connected; and the number of Chief Data Officers and Chief Digital Officer positions have doubled. In 2015, all of these things will double again,” said Sondergaard.

Gartner defines digital business as new business designs that blend the virtual world and the physical worlds, changing how processes and industries work through the Internet of Things.

“This year enterprises will spend over $40 billion designing, implementing and operating the Internet of Things,” Mr. Sondergaard said. “Every piece of equipment, anything of value, will have embedded sensors. This means leading asset-intensive enterprises will have over half a million IP addressable objects in 2020.”

There is a dramatic shift in IT spending power. Sondergaard said there is a shift of demand and control away from IT and toward digital business units closer to the customer.

“Thirty-eight percent of the total IT spend is outside of IT already, with a disproportionate amount in digital. By 2017, it will be over 50 percent,” Sondergaard said. “Digital startups sit inside your own organization, in your marketing department, in HR, in logistics and in sales. Your business units are acting as technology startups.”

Gartner estimates that 50 percent of all technology sales people are actively selling direct to business units, not IT departments. Millions of sales people and hundreds of thousands of resellers and channel partners are looking for new money flows in the fluid digital world, and they are finding eager buyers.

Bimodal IT fills the digital divide between what IT provides and what the enterprise really needs. Mode 1 is traditional, and the systems that support them must be reliable, predictable, and safe (like a great IT organization). Mode 2 is nonsequential, emphasizing agility and speed (like a startup) because disruption can occur at anytime.

Sondergaard used the example of smart machines to highlight the disruption caused in digital business. Smart machines are an emerging “super class” of technologies that perform a wide variety of work, of both the physical and the intellectual kind. For example, school computers have been grading multiple tests for many years, and now they are grading essays, unstructured tests that require analysis.

“Not is the grading more accurate, but students actually worked harder on their essays when they are graded by a smart machine,” Sondergaard said. “Other professional tasks won’t be far behind: financial analysts, medical diagnostics, and data analytics jobs will be impacted. Knowledge work will be automated.

Smart robots will appear not just on the manufacturing floor, where they do physical work, but in the workplace and even in the home. Smart machines will automate decision making. Therefore, they will not only affect jobs based on physical labor, but they will also impact jobs based on complex knowledge worker tasks.

Impact of Digital Business on Jobs

Digital businesses will impact jobs in different ways. By 2018, digital businesses will require 50 percent fewer business process workers. However, by 2018 digital business will drive a 500 percent boost in digital jobs.

The hottest skills CIOs must hire or outsource for are: mobile, user experience, and data sciences.In the future, three years from now, the hottest skills will be:Smart Machines (including the Internet of Things),Robotics,Automated Judgment, andEthics.

Over the next seven years, there will be a surge in new specialised jobs. The top jobs for digital will be: Integration Specialists,Digital Business Architects,Regulatory Analysts, andRisk Professionals.

Iyengar explained to the CIOs in the audience, “The new digital startups in your business units are thirsting for data analysts, software developers and cloud vendor management staff, and they are often hiring them fast than IT. They may be experimenting with smart machines, seeking technology expertise IT often doesn’t have.

“You must build talent for the digital organization of 2020 now. Not just the digital technology organization, but the whole enterprise. Talent is the key to digital leadership. Build credibility and build the two-speed organization.”