By 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs will be created globally to support big data: Gartner

According to Gartner, worldwide IT spending is estimated to increase from the projected spending of $3.6 trillion in 2012 to $3.7 trillion in 2013. The firm adds that big data is driving IT spending across the world.

Peter Sondergaard, senior vice-president and global head of research, Gartner, says, “By 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs globally will be created to support big data, generating 1.9 million IT jobs in the United States. In addition, every big data-related role in the U.S. will create employment for three people outside of IT, so over the next four years a total of six million jobs in the U.S. will be generated by the information economy.”

However, according to Sondergaard, despite tremendous growth potential, the industry faces a big challenge in the form of talent crunch. He says, “There is not enough talent in the industry. Our public and private education systems are failing us. Therefore, only one-third of the IT jobs will be filled. Data experts will be a scarce, valuable commodity. IT leaders will need immediate focus on how their organisation develops and attracts the skills required. These jobs will be needed to grow your business. These jobs are the future of the new information economy.”

According to Gartner the IT industry is entering the Nexus of Forces, which includes a confluence and integration of cloud, social collaboration, mobile and information. He is of the view that it is a time of accelerating change, where current IT architecture of most of the organisations will be rendered obsolete. Therefore, organisations must lead through the change by selectively destroy low impact systems, and aggressively change your IT cost structure. This is the New World of the Nexus, the next age of computing.

As per Gartner, the driving forces for IT spending include segments like cloud, mobile, social computing and big data.

Cloud

The cloud is the carrier for the three other forces: mobile ie personal cloud, social media is only possible via the cloud, and big data is the killer application for the cloud. However, cloud will be the permanent fixture, the foundation of all the other forces

“Cloud is not merely about cost-cutting, the end game is not just cheap on-demand services. In fact, 90 percent of these services are still subscription based, not pay-as-you-go,” says Sondergaard. He further adds, “We are just at the beginning of realising the cost benefits of cloud, but organisations moving to the cloud are also attracted by the new capabilities they do not get today. It is bringing new approaches to designing applications, specifically for the cloud, and providing more resilience by architectural failure as a design concept. Cloud also teaches us about services and service levels, and the contrast between what the business wants for outcomes versus IT’s old methods of getting there.”

Mobile

More than 1.6 billion smart mobile devices will be purchased globally in 2016. Two-thirds of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone, and 40 per cent of the workforce will be mobile in 2016. The challenge for IT leaders will be in determining what to do with this new channel to help their customers and employees.

Sondergaard suggests, “Mobile is about computing at the right time, in the moment. It is the point of entry for all applications, delivering personalized, contextual experiences. It means that marketing gets more time with the customer; employees become more productive; and process flows get dramatically cut.”

As per Gartner in another two years, iPads will be more common in business than Blackberries with productivity being the key driver for increasing popularity of iPads. In another two year’s time, 20 per cent of sales organisations will use tablets as the primary mobile platform for their field sales force. As a result, by 2018, 70 per cent of mobile workers will use a tablet or a hybrid device that has tablet-like characteristics.

Gartner forecasts that in 2016, half of all non-PC devices will be purchased by employees. By the end of the decade, half of all devices in business will be purchased by employees.

Social Computing

Companies are establishing social media as a discipline. Gartner predicts that in three years, 10 organisations will each spend more than $1 billion on social media.

Gartner says that social computing is moving from being just on the outside of the organisation to being at the core of business operations. It is changing the fundamentals of management: how to establish a sense of purpose and motivate people to act. Social computing will move organisations from hierarchical structures and defined teams to communities that can cross any organisational boundary.

Big Data

By tapping a continual stream of information from internal and external sources, businesses today have an endless array of new opportunities for transforming decision-making, discovering new insights, optimising the business and innovating their industries.

Big data creates a new layer in the economy which is all about information, turning information, or data, into revenue. This will accelerate growth in the global economy and create jobs.

Sondergaard shares, “Big data is about looking ahead, beyond what everybody else sees. Organisations need to understand how to deal with hybrid data, meaning the combination of structured and unstructured data, and how you shine a light on ‘dark data.’ Dark data is the data being collected, but going unused despite its value. Leading organisations of the future will be distinguished by the quality of their predictive algorithms. This is the challenge and opportunity before chief information officers of the organisatons.”