Are we ready for the changing job profiles in ICT ?

What you need to know:

  • The traditional ICT job profiles in a typical organisation include network management, database management and ICT support.
  • Key required competencies will move beyond the ability to create programs into the ability to search, analyse and integrate various software components into a new business solution.
  • Organisations are going to need folks who can filter through the overload and pick patterns of information that will inform the competitive strategy of organisations.

August is the month before September, the traditional commencement month for fresh, first-year students getting into university. 

August is also the month when we get parents and students asking to know the difference between various degree programmes such as a bachelor of science in information technology, a bachelor of science in information systems, a bachelor of science in computer technology and a bachelor of science in computer science, among others.

Luckily, we have this summarised in a blog done a year ago, titled “Defining the Computer Professional”. So we won’t have to go through the differences today and we shall instead cast our eyes into the future as we seek to establish what kind of ICT jobs will be available for those graduating four years from now.

The traditional ICT job profiles in a typical organisation include network management, database management and ICT support. Essentially this gives two broad areas of interest for potential employees: network management and database management. 

ICT graduates with an interest in designing, deploying and maintaining corporate networks will align themselves with networking departments in organisations. The same networking skill set will find use in telecommunications providers or ISPs that design and deploy networks for client organisations.

INDIGENOUS SOLUTIONS

Those interested in designing, deploying and maintaining software (programming) will naturally fall under the Information Systems Department. The ICT support team will therefore have a mix of both Networking and Software technicians to come up to your office and fix those common issues that occur when you cannot connect to your printer, your server or the Internet.

There are also specialised software houses that develop and sell customised software solutions for a broad software market. They would have a team of highly specialised software engineers with the capability to design and deploy solutions for vertical market sectors such as finance, telecommunications companies, power, transport, health super-markets, among others.

Most of these companies are local distributors of software from giant global companies like IBM, Oracle, SAP or Microsoft. We do, however, have a few local companies with indigenous solutions fighting it out with the big brands in this space (Seven Seas Technologies, Alliance Technologies, etc.). 

STANDARDISED BUSINESS PROCESSES

The typical opportunities in such companies will have Software Engineers as the key production competencies. Information Systems/Business Analysts will also be needed to visit client sites to collect and  articulate their needs into a structured form; ready for the software engineers to code the same into final software products.

Most of you must be wondering why the job profiles and opportunities in our globally acclaimed mobile-software industry have not been mentioned. The simple answer is that the core software programming principles are the same — irrespective of whether the solution will be rendered on a mobile, web, desktop or embedded system. 

Nevertheless, graduates must allocate some time to acquire additional “focused” competencies for whichever sector they will be employed in. And these will also apply to those wishing to work in the increasingly important information security sub-sector.

RAPID CHANGE

So in short, these have been the typical employment opportunities for most of prospecting ICT graduates. A quick and short scanning of the iHub job centre or Safaricom vacancies seems to support this thinking. 

But will this be the case four years from now?

It's hard to tell, given the rapid change in technologies. For sure we shall continue to have network and software engineers, but their roles may be slightly different. 

Software development is getting more and more standardised — meaning that most business processes will already have been coded and packaged for sale as a “component”. The same is happening with networking solutions.

SYSTEMS INTEGRATORS

The key required competencies will therefore move beyond the ability to create programs into the ability to search, analyse and integrate various software components into a new business solution. There is a need for graduates with both software and networking competencies in order to deliver on this requirement or capability. It is time for the Systems Integrators.

Essentially, systems integrators or systems engineers, as they are known globally, will play an increasing role in our local ICT industry. These are the folks with the ability to combine into one the various skill sets that are found within business analysts, software engineers and network administrators.

INFORMATION AVALANCHE

Along the same lines, database integrators and analysts will become more and more critical as the world gets overwhelmed by an avalanche of information. Organisations are going to need folks who can filter through the overload and pick patterns of information that will inform the competitive strategy of organisations. "Big data analytics" is what it’s called abroad, and it should be coming our way sooner than later.

We could also join or compete with India in the development of “component” software. In other words, we can focus on developing high-end software competencies that can churn out small but specialised software logic that would then be resold to the systems engineers around the world who are building the new business solutions.

Do our university curricula take into consideration these expectations? That is a question for each university to interrogate and answer.

Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya, Faculty of Computing and IT. Twitter:@jwalu