IT consulting

By B.J. Richards.

The management consultant and the computer nerd. Hardly the same species, it’s almost as though they are of two different worlds. One is slick, well-manicured, and effortlessly works the room in a suit that cost more than my rent. The other spends long, solitary nights hopped up on Mountain Dew, furiously tapping away at a keyboard, clad in a Cheeto-stained hoodie.

Could they ever learn to get along, to join forces for the common good? Perhaps if the fate of the world hung in the balance. How about the fate of the Benelux consulting market?

Like consulting firms in most markets, those in the Benelux region are facing a dire shortage of consultants with the digital skills they need to grow. Unable to hire, acquire, or train techy consultants as quickly as the market demands, some are taking a drastic step: They’re admitting they won’t always be able to find the consulting skills and the digital skills they need in the same person, and they’re restructuring their talent strategies accordingly.

By Edward Haigh

You can divide IT expenditure, slightly crudely, into two camps at the moment:

The first is about upgrading, repairing and replacing existing IT systems. It's what a lot of people would think of as the old world of IT. It's about big, enterprise-wide, centralised, systems.

The second is about digitisation: it's about big data and analytics, social media, mobile, cloud, the internet of things, and all that sort of stuff.

By Edward Haigh

A year ago I asked an Indian systems integrator if they were planning to target the French market where organisations were in deep cost cutting mode.  “Too hard,” was the response: leaving aside the usual barriers to doing business in France (have you been to the right école?), French businesses were thought to be culturally inclined against IT outsourcing and strict labour laws precluded most of the potential savings.