The nature of work is changing. President Trump may have vowed to bring jobs back to America – but does this take into account the upcoming wave of automation that could throw a spanner in the works? Today, it’s more important than ever that anyone setting out to ensure their organization is appropriately skilled to navigate the choppy waters of digital transformation, understands how data, artificial intelligence and automation are going to impact what they do.
Democratization of technological and data-driven enterprise are themes that are on everyone’s lips. We’ve seen how top-down transformation, directed by business leaders working together with data scientists on strategically-aligned initiatives has the potential to create efficiencies, better understand business processes and predict problems before they occur. At least, if you are one of the still small number of businesses which is managing to do so successfully, you have.
But imagine how much greater the potential for change could be if it could spontaneously emerge anywhere in an organization. When everyone has access to the tools, skills and knowhow to harness tech to do their job better, or drive efficiencies, then a workforce looks better equipped to deal with the challenges of the future.
This thinking is shared by Infor CEO Charles Phillips – and was the driving force behind the software company’s decision to establish its Educational Alliance Program. The initiative involves rolling out its training program into colleges and leveraging its customer and partner networks to supply students with placements and, eventually, jobs. The philosophy is that tech and coding vocations should be positioned more like trades than elite, white collar professions. Given the move towards platform infrastructure and as-a-service toolsets, it is no longer necessary to have an Oxbridge or Ivy League academic background in computer science or statistics to effectively drive data-driven transformation within an organization. It’s just a question of getting that message out there to IT, tech and STEM students or professionals who may be wondering what their next move should be, to ensure they are viably skilled for a place in the workforce of tomorrow.
Infor CEO Charles Phillips tells me “Our assumption is that pretty much every business is going to become a digital business to some degree. So even if you’re not a computer science or tech major, you need some exposure to learn how to use and apply technology.
“You should be learning this in college, and then you’re going to be a much better contributor no matter what you do.”
There’s also an understanding that there’s a lot more to tech than coding – a wide range of other skills are becoming valuable within any organization with a digital agenda, such as configuration, installation and implementation skills, along with QA and customer support.
This has always been the case but is clearly now more true than ever, thanks to the ever-growing choice of platforms and infrastructure provided “as-a-service”.
“You don’t have to be a programmer per se – we want to produce a lot of people who can code, but in tech there’s a range of skills you need to be successful with these products – there’s a whole ecosystem of people who don’t build products but help implement and configure them.”
This ecosystem is only likely to grow in the future – creating more jobs for those with the skills to bolt products and services together until they’re fit for purpose, even as more routine or procedural techie tasks are lost to automation.
The course gives students hands-on training with Infor’s enterprise software as it is used by more than 70,000 of their clients, delivered either online or, increasingly thanks to a growing number of arrangements with US universities, in a formal educational setting.
Pushing the course into colleges and universities has been seen as a priority - and this has no doubt been helped by Infor’s guarantee of a job for students who receive certification after completing the two-semester college version of the course. Students will be placed either within Infor, or with one of its partners or customers.
Phillips admits that initially there was some scepticism from academia. But it has so far managed to get its course into 27 institutions nationwide, 25 of which are colleges and two of which are high schools, and is working towards it target of gaining 50 more by next year. 33 students were enrolled this year at the University of Minnesota, and a number of hires have resulted, as promised.
“It’s a good message for your university as well, that you’re taking an interest in doing this. Of course you have to give the professors something as well – they have to find it interesting. And we’re able to let them do some research with us, and they’re learning our products and industry in a way that they might not have had access to before.”
It’s certainly true that there is a growing need for people capable of understanding both a business, and technology. Those who become best at analyzing a business problem and devising how it could most effectively be solved with automation, AI and data are likely to be able to name their price in the workforce of tomorrow, regardless of what industry they are in. As Phillips puts it, “Automation can build a car but it can’t tell it where to go. You have to know where you want to go.”
