{"id":20121,"date":"2024-01-11T07:17:08","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T12:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techservealliance.memberhost.io\/news\/2024-where-we-are-where-were-going\/"},"modified":"2025-01-17T16:07:36","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T21:07:36","slug":"2024-where-we-are-where-were-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/2024-where-we-are-where-were-going\/","title":{"rendered":"2024: Where We Are, Where We&#8217;re Going"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>h3{color:#f98200} h5{color:#f98200} h6{color:#f98200;}ul li{padding-left:0px!important}.tick-list b {color: #4dba4d; font-weight: 800; padding: 10px; padding-left: 0px;}.bullet b {color: black; font-weight: 800; padding: 0px; padding-right: 10px; font-size: 24px; float: left; margin-top: -8px;}.arrow b{color: #f98200 !important; position: absolute;left: 0;}.staticcontent ul li {padding-left: 32px !important;} h6 b {font-size: 18px;} h4{margin-top: 0px !important;}h4 i{color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 22px;}.staticcontent ul  {padding-left: 15px !important;}   ul.pad-l-0{padding-left:0 !important;} li{text-align: justify;}.staticcontent ul li:before{font-size: 10px;top:5px;color:#f98200;}.staticcontent ul.circle li:after{font-size: 10px;top:5px;color:#f98200;content:\"\";position:absolute;left:-1px;background:#fff;width:12px;height:12px;border-radius:50px;top:9px;border:1px solid;}.staticcontent ul.square li:after{font-size: 10px;top:5px;color:#00659b;content:\"\";position:absolute;left:-1px;background:#00659b;width:12px;height:12px;top:9px;border:1px solid;border-radius:unset;}.staticcontent ul.square li:before{font-size: 10px;top:5px;color:#00659b;content:\"\";position:absolute;left:-1px;background:#00659b;width:12px;height:12px;top:9px;border:1px solid;border-radius:unset;}<br \/><\/style>\n<h3>Leading CIOs, Staffing Leaders &amp; IT Procurement Professionals on the State of Technology Moving into 2024<\/h3>\n<p>As the technological landscape continues to evolve, the year 2024 brings forth many opportunities as well as challenges for both the broader technology industry and its indispensable counterpart, the technology staffing sector. From navigating the intricate terrain of talent acquisition amid persistent skill shortages to confronting the dynamic impacts of emerging technologies, the stakes have never been higher.<\/p>\n<p>TechServe Alliance brought together a panel of IT leaders and technology staffing executives at the TechServe Alliance Executive Summit, held in conjunction with the Society for Information Management (SIM)\u2019s executive leadership conference TechExec 2023. The group delved into some of the most pressing issues shaping the tech landscape and shared their perspectives on current industry trends impacting those who employ and supply technical talent. From a pullback in budgets in some sectors, and ongoing talent shortages in many skill sets, to the impact of AI, the panel attempted to make sense of the dynamic economic, talent, and technology landscape.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-12598\" src=\"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IT-staffing_leaders-panel-1024x478.jpg\" alt=\"TechServe Summit 2023_IT Leaders and Staffing leaders panel\" width=\"1024\" height=\"478\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>The panel was moderated by Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe Alliance, and Mark Taylor, CEO of the Society for Information Management (SIM). The panelists were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Joe Bruhin, CIO, Breakthru Beverage<\/li>\n<li>John Manzanares,\u00a0CIO, Curaleaf<\/li>\n<li>Bruce Morton, Head of Strategy, Allegis Global Solutions<\/li>\n<li>Amy Schulz, Sr. Director Global Procurement, Hallmark Cards, Inc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here are some of the highlights and the thoughts of the panelists:<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Price and margin compression is forcing businesses to optimize, and become more lean and agile<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>While the past several years have seen historic levels of hiring and investment in technology, businesses in most industries are pulling back and being more discretionary with investments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you look at our research,\u201d Mark Roberts says, \u201cit\u2019s \u2018everything, everywhere, all at once\u2019. There are many mixed signals and mixed messages. Take us through some of the things you\u2019re seeing in terms of the economy, your business, and how it\u2019s affecting IT projects, hiring, and availability of talent.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 40px; padding-bottom: 20px;\">\n<p><em>We\u2019ve been through a major transformation over the past five and a half years. That transformation has been to take out the cost, make sure that we can afford a lot of our new investments. We\u2019re becoming much more digitized.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; Amy Schulz<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>We\u2019re seeing price compression. Like many businesses, we go through cycles of heavy growth. Now, we\u2019re going through a bit of optimization. We\u2019re trying to make better, smarter choices around where we spend our money, where we invest, and where we divest. Is it driving revenue? Is it going to optimize costs? Is it going to help us use resources and assets more effectively? Or is it mitigating risk? If it doesn\u2019t hit on one of those four things, then why are we doing it?<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; John Manzanares<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Help your teams, and the organization as a whole, understand the things that you should just plain stop doing. It\u2019s about prioritization. Getting your organization aligned to the things that are going to move the needle farthest and fastest, and clear everything else out of the way.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; Joe Bruhin<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h4><strong>There are continued challenges in recruiting talent, particularly those with difficult-to-find skill sets<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Although the pace of hiring has slowed, we\u2019re still facing record-low unemployment -particularly in IT &#8211; and niche skills are in very high demand. \u201cWith IT unemployment hovering around 1.9%,\u201d asks Mark Taylor, \u201chow concerned are you about finding and hiring the talent you need?\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 40px; padding-bottom: 20px;\">\n<p><em>We still need people, we\u2019re still going to be bringing people in. Maybe not at the same pace as we were for the last few years. But the demand is still there. And at 1.9% unemployment, it\u2019s hard to find those people.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; John Manzanares<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>We\u2019re entering a period where we\u2019ve run out of people. That\u2019s it, we\u2019re done. The only way you\u2019re going to get business now is taking it from your competitor. The pie isn\u2019t getting any bigger. If the people aren\u2019t out there, you can\u2019t put them to work.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; Bruce Morton<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h4><strong>The transition to more hybrid and remote work is ongoing, and managing employee burnout is more important than ever<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>The pandemic caused a spike in the number of employees working remotely, part or all of the time, and predictions suggest that remote is here to stay. Some companies, however, haven\u2019t gotten the message.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn a recent LinkedIn report, only 11% of job postings advertised remote opportunities,\u201d says Mark Roberts. \u201cBut 47% of applicants are looking for those positions. How is the transition to hybrid and remote work happening in your business?\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 40px; padding-bottom: 20px;\">\n<p><em>We\u2019re trying to get people to come back. They go to their desk, they turn on their Teams, and they have meetings with people just like they would at home. Frankly, they get frustrated if we ask them to come into the office and do the same thing. I didn\u2019t see a single decline in productivity over the two-plus years that we were all sitting at home. So let\u2019s let people work where they feel they\u2019re most productive.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; Joe Bruhin<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>We want people to see that it\u2019s okay to take the dog for a walk when you\u2019re on a conference call. And that you don\u2019t have to feel guilty about going to the gym for an hour, because your boss does that too. That\u2019s what we\u2019re working on, trying to get people to take those breaks.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; Bruce Morton<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>The current level of burnout challenges every manager to be more sensitive and empathetic to what\u2019s going on in your employee\u2019s life.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; John Manzanares<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Even if it\u2019s ten minutes at the top of the meeting, Hallmark\u2019s great at this. I mean, their motto is caring, connected lives. So they\u2019re very good at that. I\u2019m trying not to lose that in the culture as we\u2019re not face-to-face as much. We do that through virtual coffee, virtual happy hours, that sort of thing.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; Amy Schulz<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h4><strong>How AI technologies are being deployed in businesses now, and how they could be in the future<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>There\u2019s little question that AI will change the way business is done in every industry &#8211; staffing and otherwise. Businesses of all types are incorporating these technologies today, and more will follow. \u201cWhen you think about generative AI and its effect on your business,\u201d Mark Taylor asks, \u201cis it all that it\u2019s hyped up to be, or no?\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 40px; padding-bottom: 20px;\">\n<p><em>Deconstruct the work into tasks. What skills are required to do that work? What can be automated? What could be done by AI, and what should be done by an employee?<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; Bruce Morton<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>We\u2019re looking at AI from a procurement perspective. How can I get the first draft of a contract 90% there, to the point where people need to look at it?<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; Amy Schulz<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Whether it\u2019s RPA, machine learning, or chatbots, how can we make people more effective? It\u2019s not going to replace you, it\u2019s going to help augment you. It\u2019s going to make you more effective, and take away the boring, mundane jobs you don\u2019t like doing anyway.<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; John Manzanares<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h4><strong>Predictions for the economy and businesses in the coming year<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Economic uncertainty is reflected in the business decisions being made now, and will do so for the near future. \u201cThere are indications of a recovery beginning early next year,\u201d Roberts says, \u201cbut the last year or two have been challenging and very unpredictable. How has that affected your business, and how are you responding?\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 40px; padding-bottom: 20px;\">\n<p><em>The economy is weird, it\u2019s unpredictable. You see 1.9% unemployment, but nobody wants to move. I think one of the reasons people don\u2019t want to move is because they\u2019re afraid of the economy. GDP is up, inflation went down a bit, home sales are up, prices are staying up, mortgage rates are going up. We haven\u2019t seen these things before in this combination. It\u2019s causing people to hunker down a bit.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; Joe Bruhin<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>We\u2019ve got about 130 MSP programs around the world, and it\u2019s obviously down in 2023. We think it\u2019s flattened. We don\u2019t believe there\u2019s worse to come, but our prediction for next year is flat.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; Bruce Morton<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>The future is going to change; we don\u2019t know what that\u2019s going to look like. You need talent that are curious, and continual learners, and willing to challenge things.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: unset; margin-left: 40px;\">&#8211; John Manzanares<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Did you miss out on this year?<\/h3>\n<p>The agenda for the <a href=\"https:\/\/events.techservealliance.org\/2023\">2023 TechServe Alliance Executive Summit<\/a> and SIM TechExec 2023 was filled with events like this panel discussion: insight and knowledge-sharing between industry peers, and opportunities to connect while building and strengthening relationships with colleagues. Did you miss the Summit this year? Start making plans now to travel to attend in 2024! This year&#8217;s Summit is scheduled for Nov. 18-20, at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess Resort in Scottsdale, AZ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leading CIOs, Staffing Leaders &amp; IT Procurement Professionals on the State of Technology Moving into 2024 As the technological landscape continues to evolve, the year 2024 brings forth many opportunities [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3391,"featured_media":20122,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_company_domain":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topics":[245,251],"member-content":[],"class_list":["post-20121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","topics-executive-summit","topics-research-trends"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65959,"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20121\/revisions\/65959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20121"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=20121"},{"taxonomy":"member-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techservealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/member-content?post=20121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}