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Q. What do you consider to be the biggest issues facing IT departments at the moment?
One of the biggest issues expressed by our clients IT departments is the feeling of being
overstretched and the need to deliver more for less. I think this is fuelled by the current
climate and accentuated by the speed at which technology is changing. It’s difficult to
retain technical expertise to stay on top of new developments while also maintaining
legacy systems.
Q. What recommendations do you give to organisations currently dealing with these issues?
When organisations are dealing with these kinds of issues I often suggest that they
should look at the bigger picture. Consider looking at your in-house capabilities but
also consider what can you outsource to IT partners? Here at MSM we very much consider
ourselves to be, almost like an integral part of our client’s IT department and I truly
believe this is an effective way of managing these kind of problems.
Q. How has MSM changed to respond to these resourcing pressures?
In response to these resourcing pressures MSM has changed slightly. We’ve always been
a bolt-on for our clients offering software and database support to help them to focus
on their core services, but our support service has also evolved. In response to our client’s
resourcing issues we now offer a service called body shopping. Body shopping is a way of helping
our clients fill a resource gap, whether that be one of our developers working with a client
to help out on a specific project or perhaps just filling in on a gap while our client
carries out a recruitment process. It is a simple but effective way of filling that skills
gap. We have a team of experienced developers so it seemed only right that we help out when
clients need it. Whether they are working on site or offsite the developer’s time
is managed by the client, but all HR issues are still dealt with by MSM.
In addition to body shopping we’ve also seen an increase in the demand for knowledge
in legacy technologies – in particular Delphi and Silverlight. This isn’t a new service
that MSM is providing because we’ve always maintained expertise in these types of legacy
languages that other companies are forgetting about, but it is something we’ve definitely
seen an increase in demand for.
Q. Do you envisage any other pressures coming to the forefront in the next year or so?
Another pressure I envisage is that mobile applications are going to become a necessity
rather than a ‘nice to have’. With the onset of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) employees
are going to want a more mobile way of working so for those who rely on an application to
carry out their job, they are going to want a mobile version in the near future.