As demand for digital talent reaches a crescendo, CIOs are increasingly embracing an Uber-like approach to filling key technical roles throughout their organizations.
Drivers for Gig Economy and how freelancer platforms such as UpWork, Freelancer, and Toptal allow organisations to scale their workforce, be agile, and access high-quality talent at competitive cost.
Beyond the Gig Economy: How New Technologies Are Reshaping the Future of WorkThumbtack, Inc.
Thumbtack's newest economic report describes how skilled professionals are using new platforms to find new work and build their business – and their lives. Called “Beyond the Gig Economy: How New Technologies Are Reshaping the Future of Work,” this report explores how technology enables buyers and sellers of services to connect, moving the conversation beyond a one dimensional discussion of the so-called gig economy.
Gain knowledge about the Future of Work(ers) in an on-demand economy. Understand how baby boomers are retiring and exiting the workforce in mass, and the Millennials are taking their place. Learn how job and career expectations have changed because of the shift. This includes workplace expectations, how people are searching for jobs, and how companies are hiring. See in detail how this shift is being driven by mobile app adoption and technology. #YourFutureWorkforce www.shiftgig.com/future
GIG economy - Human Resource management - Manu Melwin Joymanumelwin
A gig economy is an environment in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements.
How Should Organizations Take Advantage of the Growing On-Demand “Gig-Economy”?Smart ERP Solutions, Inc.
Slides from the webinar
Description:
Today’s workforce features increasingly flexible work situations, while also dealing with a shortage of timely needed skills. The current competitive landscape continues to demand more contingent workers, freelancers, contractors, and several other types of specialized on-demand “gig” workers.
SmartERP invites you to How Should Organizations Take Advantage of the Growing On-Demand “Gig-Economy,” presented by the author of Thriving In The Gig Economy, Marion McGovern. In this webinar attendees will learn more about how to operate with emerging independent talent marketplaces. We’ll also discuss capitalizing on the strategic use of high-value, skilled, contingent workers, how to procure, onboard, and manage them, while reducing risk and avoiding compliance issues for your organization.
Drivers for Gig Economy and how freelancer platforms such as UpWork, Freelancer, and Toptal allow organisations to scale their workforce, be agile, and access high-quality talent at competitive cost.
Beyond the Gig Economy: How New Technologies Are Reshaping the Future of WorkThumbtack, Inc.
Thumbtack's newest economic report describes how skilled professionals are using new platforms to find new work and build their business – and their lives. Called “Beyond the Gig Economy: How New Technologies Are Reshaping the Future of Work,” this report explores how technology enables buyers and sellers of services to connect, moving the conversation beyond a one dimensional discussion of the so-called gig economy.
Gain knowledge about the Future of Work(ers) in an on-demand economy. Understand how baby boomers are retiring and exiting the workforce in mass, and the Millennials are taking their place. Learn how job and career expectations have changed because of the shift. This includes workplace expectations, how people are searching for jobs, and how companies are hiring. See in detail how this shift is being driven by mobile app adoption and technology. #YourFutureWorkforce www.shiftgig.com/future
GIG economy - Human Resource management - Manu Melwin Joymanumelwin
A gig economy is an environment in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements.
How Should Organizations Take Advantage of the Growing On-Demand “Gig-Economy”?Smart ERP Solutions, Inc.
Slides from the webinar
Description:
Today’s workforce features increasingly flexible work situations, while also dealing with a shortage of timely needed skills. The current competitive landscape continues to demand more contingent workers, freelancers, contractors, and several other types of specialized on-demand “gig” workers.
SmartERP invites you to How Should Organizations Take Advantage of the Growing On-Demand “Gig-Economy,” presented by the author of Thriving In The Gig Economy, Marion McGovern. In this webinar attendees will learn more about how to operate with emerging independent talent marketplaces. We’ll also discuss capitalizing on the strategic use of high-value, skilled, contingent workers, how to procure, onboard, and manage them, while reducing risk and avoiding compliance issues for your organization.
Independant work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy, par McKinseyFrenchWeb.fr
Près de 162 millions de travailleurs aux Etats-Unis et en Europe ont aujourd'hui un statut d'indépendant, soit de 20 à 30% de la population active dans ces deux zones gégographiques, selon l'étude McKinsey.
Face à l'ampleur du phénomène, le cabinet de conseil américain a souhaité en apprendre plus concernant cette catégorie de travailleurs aujourd'hui méconnue, et déterminer s'ils étaient satisfaits de leur statut ou non.
The Future Workforce: The Gig Economy and the Challenges of a Contingent Work...EPAY Systems
Almost 40 million Americans work on a part-time or freelance basis and by 2020 half of the American workforce is expected to be part of this gig economy. This new workforce is full of challenges and benefits for both employers and employees. For employers looking to engage this new workforce there is a lot of legal compliance issues to consider, and for employees looking for freedom they look to be free of benefits as well.
A somewhat longer version of my Frontiers talk about technology and the future of the economy, with additional material pitched to an audience of Internet operators at Apricot 2017, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on February 27, 2017
Andreas Tschas - Pioneers - Building Startup Marketplaces in Europe & Asia - ...Burton Lee
Talk by Andreas Tschas, CEO & Co-Founder, Pioneers Festival, at Stanford on Feb 22 2016, in our session on 'Startup Marketplaces & AI FinTech Founders :: Vienna & Portugal'.
Website: http://www.StanfordEuropreneurs.org
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/StanfordEuropreneurs
Twitter: @Europreneurs
My talk at Closing the Gap, Jeff Greene's conference on technology and income inequality, held in Palm Beach on Dec 7-8, 2015. I talk about lessons from technology for 21st century business.
Irrational Exuberance: A Tech Crash is ComingJeffrey Funk
These slides apply Nobel Laureate Robert Schiller's concept of irrational exuberance (and a book) title to the current speculative bubble of 2019. Over investments in startups and a lack of profitability in them are finally starting to catch up with the venture capital industry and the tech sector that relies on it. Investments by US venture capitalists have risen about six times since 2001 causing the total invested in 2018 to exceed by 40% the peak of 2000, the last big year of the dotcom bubble. But the number of IPOs has never returned to the peak years of 1993 to 2000; only about 250 were carried out between 2015 and 2017 vs. about 1,200 between 1995 and 1997.
The reason is simple: startups are taking longer to go public because they are not profitable. Consider the data. The median time to IPO has risen from 2.8 years in 1998 to 7.7 years in 2016 and the ones going public are less profitable than they were in the past. Although only 22% of startups going public in 1980 were unprofitable, 82% were unprofitable in 2018. The same high percentages of unprofitability have only been achieved twice before, in 1998 and 1999 right before the dotcom bubble burst. Furthermore, startups that have recently done high profile IPOs such as Snap, Dropbox, Blue Apron, Fitbit, Trivago, Box, and Cloudera are still not profitable.
AI in Financial Asset Management Market – Notable Developments, Upcoming Tren...ShivamGaur62
Machine learning, computer vision, and speech recognition technologies are in demand and major number of acquisitions in the recent years were associated with these technologies, and the same technologies will dominate the investment patterns in the coming years
More insightful information | Request a sample copy @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/9723
This point of view builds on prior global dialogue on the social value of the organisation, the future of the company and work plus recent debate on the value of data and British Academy research on the future of the corporation.
It looks at the future of the company through three lenses:
Corporate Purpose
The Digital Company
Organisation 3.0
This is being shared in a speech / workshop in Kuala Lumpur and used to kick off further discussions that will take place during 2019 on the future of work, the future of the organisation and the future of the company.
For more information:
Future Agenda
www.futureagenda.org
Future of the Company (2015)
https://www.futureagenda.org/view/initial_perspective/the-future-of-company
Future of Work (2018)
https://www.futureagenda.org/news/future-of-work
Integrated Reporting
http://integratedreporting.org
Future of the Corporation (British Academy)
https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/future-corporation
Purpose of the Corporation (Frank Bold) http://en.frankbold.org/our-work/campaign/purpose-corporation
These slides show that the demand for most professions is growing steadily in spite of continued improvements in productivity enhancing tools for them. They also show that AI will have a largely incremental effect on the professions, in combination with Moore's Law, cloud computing, and Big Data. They do this accounting, legal, architects, journalists, and engineers.
My talk for TechStars at Techweek Kansas City in October 2018. While this is a talk based on my book WTF?, it is fairly different from many of the others that I've posted here, in that it focuses specifically on parts of the book that contain advice for entrepreneurs, rather than on the broader questions of technology and the economy. As always, look at the speaker notes for
Digital Leadership Interview : Michael A Osborne, Associate professor at the ...Capgemini
"More or less anything that does not require one of the three bottlenecks – i.e. creativity, social intelligence and the requirement to manipulate complex objects in an unstructured environment – will be potentially automatable."
IT that matters in the new machine age prioritizes cybersecurity, innovation, time-to-market and customers over cost-cutting, according to our latest study. Here’s what the future looks like for IT infrastructure, including our HEROES framework to guide you along the way.
Independant work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy, par McKinseyFrenchWeb.fr
Près de 162 millions de travailleurs aux Etats-Unis et en Europe ont aujourd'hui un statut d'indépendant, soit de 20 à 30% de la population active dans ces deux zones gégographiques, selon l'étude McKinsey.
Face à l'ampleur du phénomène, le cabinet de conseil américain a souhaité en apprendre plus concernant cette catégorie de travailleurs aujourd'hui méconnue, et déterminer s'ils étaient satisfaits de leur statut ou non.
The Future Workforce: The Gig Economy and the Challenges of a Contingent Work...EPAY Systems
Almost 40 million Americans work on a part-time or freelance basis and by 2020 half of the American workforce is expected to be part of this gig economy. This new workforce is full of challenges and benefits for both employers and employees. For employers looking to engage this new workforce there is a lot of legal compliance issues to consider, and for employees looking for freedom they look to be free of benefits as well.
A somewhat longer version of my Frontiers talk about technology and the future of the economy, with additional material pitched to an audience of Internet operators at Apricot 2017, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on February 27, 2017
Andreas Tschas - Pioneers - Building Startup Marketplaces in Europe & Asia - ...Burton Lee
Talk by Andreas Tschas, CEO & Co-Founder, Pioneers Festival, at Stanford on Feb 22 2016, in our session on 'Startup Marketplaces & AI FinTech Founders :: Vienna & Portugal'.
Website: http://www.StanfordEuropreneurs.org
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/StanfordEuropreneurs
Twitter: @Europreneurs
My talk at Closing the Gap, Jeff Greene's conference on technology and income inequality, held in Palm Beach on Dec 7-8, 2015. I talk about lessons from technology for 21st century business.
Irrational Exuberance: A Tech Crash is ComingJeffrey Funk
These slides apply Nobel Laureate Robert Schiller's concept of irrational exuberance (and a book) title to the current speculative bubble of 2019. Over investments in startups and a lack of profitability in them are finally starting to catch up with the venture capital industry and the tech sector that relies on it. Investments by US venture capitalists have risen about six times since 2001 causing the total invested in 2018 to exceed by 40% the peak of 2000, the last big year of the dotcom bubble. But the number of IPOs has never returned to the peak years of 1993 to 2000; only about 250 were carried out between 2015 and 2017 vs. about 1,200 between 1995 and 1997.
The reason is simple: startups are taking longer to go public because they are not profitable. Consider the data. The median time to IPO has risen from 2.8 years in 1998 to 7.7 years in 2016 and the ones going public are less profitable than they were in the past. Although only 22% of startups going public in 1980 were unprofitable, 82% were unprofitable in 2018. The same high percentages of unprofitability have only been achieved twice before, in 1998 and 1999 right before the dotcom bubble burst. Furthermore, startups that have recently done high profile IPOs such as Snap, Dropbox, Blue Apron, Fitbit, Trivago, Box, and Cloudera are still not profitable.
AI in Financial Asset Management Market – Notable Developments, Upcoming Tren...ShivamGaur62
Machine learning, computer vision, and speech recognition technologies are in demand and major number of acquisitions in the recent years were associated with these technologies, and the same technologies will dominate the investment patterns in the coming years
More insightful information | Request a sample copy @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/9723
This point of view builds on prior global dialogue on the social value of the organisation, the future of the company and work plus recent debate on the value of data and British Academy research on the future of the corporation.
It looks at the future of the company through three lenses:
Corporate Purpose
The Digital Company
Organisation 3.0
This is being shared in a speech / workshop in Kuala Lumpur and used to kick off further discussions that will take place during 2019 on the future of work, the future of the organisation and the future of the company.
For more information:
Future Agenda
www.futureagenda.org
Future of the Company (2015)
https://www.futureagenda.org/view/initial_perspective/the-future-of-company
Future of Work (2018)
https://www.futureagenda.org/news/future-of-work
Integrated Reporting
http://integratedreporting.org
Future of the Corporation (British Academy)
https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/future-corporation
Purpose of the Corporation (Frank Bold) http://en.frankbold.org/our-work/campaign/purpose-corporation
These slides show that the demand for most professions is growing steadily in spite of continued improvements in productivity enhancing tools for them. They also show that AI will have a largely incremental effect on the professions, in combination with Moore's Law, cloud computing, and Big Data. They do this accounting, legal, architects, journalists, and engineers.
My talk for TechStars at Techweek Kansas City in October 2018. While this is a talk based on my book WTF?, it is fairly different from many of the others that I've posted here, in that it focuses specifically on parts of the book that contain advice for entrepreneurs, rather than on the broader questions of technology and the economy. As always, look at the speaker notes for
Digital Leadership Interview : Michael A Osborne, Associate professor at the ...Capgemini
"More or less anything that does not require one of the three bottlenecks – i.e. creativity, social intelligence and the requirement to manipulate complex objects in an unstructured environment – will be potentially automatable."
IT that matters in the new machine age prioritizes cybersecurity, innovation, time-to-market and customers over cost-cutting, according to our latest study. Here’s what the future looks like for IT infrastructure, including our HEROES framework to guide you along the way.
CIO Insights from the Global C-suite StudyCasey Lucas
Moving from the back office to the front lines - CIO insights from the Global C-suite Study
CIOs tell us that their place in the organizational pyramid has changed in the past five years. Many of them command more respect and possess more authority than before and they are working more closely with their C-suite colleagues.
Keeping pace with technology and big data.pdfClaire D'Costa
How IT companies can bridge the gap between ever-increasing talent needs and ever-changing technology?
In this pdf, you will get to know:
1- The technology's part in the play
2- The widening skills gap
3- Ways to fill up the void
4- Future of Big Data
5- Other useful insights
AI & India : The potential to be the next global centre of innovationUmakant Soni
The combination of a large and rapidly growing mobile-internet connected population along with startups being able to access their data along with open-source intelligence research means they can leverage decades of research, apply it to data, and pipe the results to build context-aware, predictive and extremely personalised business models.
This can be built on intelligent process automation and forecasting frameworks for speed and precision. Overall, these businesses will have potential for step-changes in operational efficiency and effectiveness in understanding and fulfilling customer needs.
This is especially so in India, where small screens on many smartphones can create vast pools of data to power AI. By further automating business decisions through machine learning, and surfacing them through smart, intelligent interfaces, these startups will disrupt older technologies and traditional businesses – based on heuristical approaches – and can emerge as “new category leaders”.
Talent Augmentation: Through Intelligent Process Automation, Smart Robots Ext...Cognizant
Process automation is moving from the factory floor to the world of knowledge work. But robots can't do it alone. Companies that calibrate smart people with smart machines are already achieving higher productivity and superior business results.
Patrick Couch - Intelligenta Maskiner & Smartare Tjänster IBM Sverige
Industriföretag, såväl tillverkare som användare av maskiner, fordon och utrustning, står inför ett paradigmskifte drivet av ökad global konkurrens, kunders förändrade efterfrågan samt det faktum att produkterna nu blir instrumenterade, ihopkopplade och mer intelligenta. Stora datamängder är inte ett buzzword för dessa företag, utan en reell verklighet som de behöver förhålla sig till för att säkra sin framtida verksamhet. I bästa fall omvandlar dessa företag denna teknologiska revolution (populärt kallad Internet of Things, Industrial Internet, M2M, Industri 4.0 etc.) till en motor för att utveckla verksamheten mot tillväxt och effektivare produktion. Detta skifte skapar framförallt stora möjligheter att förflytta sig mot leveranser av tjänster som kraftigt ökar mervärdet för kunderna, deras kunders kunder samt för producenten.
In a few years, the position of data scientist is expected to be the highest paying one. The
potential for expansion is astounding! These are the appropriate talents for the employment
roles in this industry.
Web Desk for India Today Since the 2020 pandemic, digitization has taken center stage, and
businesses all around the world have invested in cutting-edge technologies to improve their
productivity. Data scienc
A convergence of technology trends will transform the role of enterprise information technology (IT) between now and 2020. The proliferation of cloud computing, of mobile devices and of new data sources will make corporate processes and outcomes radically more transparent to employees, to business partners and to customers, but will also place new demands on IT departments and on chief information officers (CIOs).
The quest for digital skills is an Economist Intelligence Unit report, sponsored by Cognizant, on the supply and demand of digital skills across four industries: financial services, healthcare, retail and manufacturing.
Delivering on the Promise of Digital TransformationBMC Software
IT is at the center of the digital revolution. Working with business leaders to execute a digital transformation strategy that capitalizes on cloud computing, big data, social networking and smart devices is critical for success. For more information, visit www.bmc.com
In this edition of our Work Ahead study, we explore the increasing primacy of digital within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and assess what’s next for the future of work.
Using Adaptive Scrum to Tame Process Reverse Engineering in Data Analytics Pr...Cognizant
Organizations rely on analytics to make intelligent decisions and improve business performance, which sometimes requires reproducing business processes from a legacy application to a digital-native state to reduce the functional, technical and operational debts. Adaptive Scrum can reduce the complexity of the reproduction process iteratively as well as provide transparency in data analytics porojects.
It Takes an Ecosystem: How Technology Companies Deliver Exceptional ExperiencesCognizant
Experience is evolving into a strategy that reaches across technology companies. We offer guidance on the rise of experience and its role in business modernization, with details on how orgnizations can build the ecosystem to support it.
The Work Ahead: Transportation and Logistics Delivering on the Digital-Physic...Cognizant
The T&L industry appears poised to accelerate its long-overdue modernization drive, as the pandemic spurs an increased need for agility and resilience, according to our study.
Enhancing Desirability: Five Considerations for Winning Digital InitiativesCognizant
To be a modern digital business in the post-COVID era, organizations must be fanatical about the experiences they deliver to an increasingly savvy and expectant user community. Getting there requires a mastery of human-design thinking, compelling user interface and interaction design, and a focus on functional and nonfunctional capabilities that drive business differentiation and results.
The Work Ahead in Manufacturing: Fulfilling the Agility MandateCognizant
According to our research, manufacturers are well ahead of other industries in their IoT deployments but need to marshal the investment required to meet today’s intensified demands for business resilience.
The Work Ahead in Higher Education: Repaving the Road for the Employees of To...Cognizant
Higher-ed institutions expect pandemic-driven disruption to continue, especially as hyperconnectivity, analytics and AI drive personalized education models over the lifetime of the learner, according to our recent research.
Engineering the Next-Gen Digital Claims Organisation for Australian General I...Cognizant
In recent years, insurers have invested in technology platforms and process improvements to improve
claims outcomes. Leaders will build on this foundation across the claims landscape, spanning experience,
operations, customer service and the overall supply chain with market-differentiating capabilities to
achieve sustainable results.
Profitability in the Direct-to-Consumer Marketplace: A Playbook for Media and...Cognizant
Amid constant change, industry leaders need an upgraded IT infrastructure capable of adapting to audience expectations while proactively anticipating ever-evolving business requirements.
Green Rush: The Economic Imperative for SustainabilityCognizant
Green business is good business, according to our recent research, whether for companies monetizing tech tools used for sustainability or for those that see the impact of these initiatives on business goals.
Policy Administration Modernization: Four Paths for InsurersCognizant
The pivot to digital is fraught with numerous obstacles but with proper planning and execution, legacy carriers can update their core systems and keep pace with the competition, while proactively addressing customer needs.
The Work Ahead in Utilities: Powering a Sustainable Future with DigitalCognizant
Utilities are starting to adopt digital technologies to eliminate slow processes, elevate customer experience and boost sustainability, according to our recent study.
AI in Media & Entertainment: Starting the Journey to ValueCognizant
Up to now, the global media & entertainment industry (M&E) has been lagging most other sectors in its adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). But our research shows that M&E companies are set to close the gap over the coming three years, as they ramp up their investments in AI and reap rising returns. The first steps? Getting a firm grip on data – the foundation of any successful AI strategy – and balancing technology spend with investments in AI skills.
Operations Workforce Management: A Data-Informed, Digital-First ApproachCognizant
As #WorkFromAnywhere becomes the rule rather than the exception, organizations face an important question: How can they increase their digital quotient to engage and enable a remote operations workforce to work collaboratively to deliver onclient requirements and contractual commitments?
Five Priorities for Quality Engineering When Taking Banking to the CloudCognizant
As banks move to cloud-based banking platforms for lower costs and greater agility, they must seamlessly integrate technologies and workflows while ensuring security, performance and an enhanced user experience. Here are five ways cloud-focused quality assurance helps banks maximize the benefits.
Getting Ahead With AI: How APAC Companies Replicate Success by Remaining FocusedCognizant
Changing market dynamics are propelling Asia-Pacific businesses to take a highly disciplined and focused approach to ensuring that their AI initiatives rapidly scale and quickly generate heightened business impact.
The Work Ahead in Intelligent Automation: Coping with Complexity in a Post-Pa...Cognizant
Intelligent automation continues to be a top driver of the future of work, according to our recent study. To reap the full advantages, businesses need to move from isolated to widespread deployment.
2. Cognizanti • 2Cognizanti • 2
Jumping on the Gig Economy
By Gary Beach
Commentary
As demand for digital talent
reaches a crescendo, CIOs are
increasingly embracing an
Uber-like approach to filling
key technical roles throughout
their organizations.
If you’ve ever used Uber, you’ve already
experienced a model that is poised to redefine
the very nature of work across disciplines,
including IT. The ride-sharing service not only
provides a new approach to transportation
but also restructures the employer/employee
relationship – a transformation so disruptive
that ignoring it puts businesses at competi-
tive risk. This trend is particularly relevant to
participants in the thriving global economy, in
which “talentism” is the new capitalism.1
This movement even comes with a popular
moniker: “the gig economy.” The phrase
might at first sound like a benign term that
conjures up images of IT workers whimsi-
cally hopping from one project to another,
deciding when and where to work, and more
focused on enjoying work/life balance than
receiving a regular paycheck.
But on closer inspection, there’s far more
going on, especially in light of the gig, or
contingent, economy’s rapid emergence
alongside what the World Economic
Forum (WEF) calls “the fourth industrial
revolution.” In the WEF’s view, the
fourth industrial revolution is a global
phenomenon that builds on and accelerates
the ongoing digital revolution by blending
the physical and virtual worlds, adding
incredible advances in artificial intelligence,
automation and machine/deep learning to
the simmering business-technology mix. In
fact, the contingent economy represents an
entirely new way of attracting and retaining
highly sought-after IT talent – as long as IT
organizations choose talent wisely, on-board
effectively and protect IP where need be.
Work: Historical
Consequences, Future
Implications
When I read a recently published WEF
manifesto on this topic, entitled “The
Future of Jobs,”2
I had to double-check my
eyeglasses: At 400 surveyed companies,
CEOs expect to eliminate seven million jobs
– or 54% of their total payrolls – within the
next four years. Fortunately, they also said
they expect to create two million additional
jobs over that time, mostly in science and
engineering positions.
While eye-popping, these seismic changes
have been a long time in the making.
In the mainframe/minicomputer era of
the 1950s and 1960s, tech workers were
full-time employees, paid a salary, benefits
and often a pension. By the late 1970s,
the move to industrial-strength PCs and
local-area networks caused businesses to
augment full-time staff with IT professionals
employed by value-added resellers who better
understood the vast business implications of
these seemingly toy-like new technologies.
As tech infrastructures expanded in the
1980s to include distributed networks of
mainframes, midrange and client/server
systems, payrolls swelled accordingly. To
counter rising costs, and focus on core
business capabilities, companies such as
3. Eastman Kodak in 1989 embraced a bold new
employment model for IT that entailed the
wholesale sourcing of talent.
Meanwhile, concerns about rewriting billions
of lines of aging computer code for Y2K
compliance introduced yet another classifica-
tion of IT worker in the mid-1990s: those
employed by global services providers. After
that challenge was met successfully, many cor-
porations expanded their arrangements with
sourcing companies to include e-business and
strategic consulting assignments.
Today’s IT Talent Mandate
This brings us back to 2016, an era in which
a total of 67 companies reportedly account
for 99% of the tech market’s total value.
That’s a major departure from 30 years
ago, when industry-compatible technology
originated primarily from one company –
IBM – representing 95% of the market’s
value. While competition is good for
customers, it also translates into incredible
complexity for frontline tech workers tasked
with deploying, connecting and securing
cloud, big data, analytics and mobile Internet
projects. All that complexity comes with a
silver lining for IT workers: strong demand
for their skills.
According to Dice.com, an IT career website,
the search for highly skilled tech talent
will be a top hiring priority in 2016, with a
record 78% of hiring managers anticipating
more hiring in the first half of this year vs.
the second half of 2015. A total of 71% of
companies are looking to add to their tech
teams by 11% or more in the first six months
of 2016.3
That high demand is the prime motivational
force leading to the gig economy. In its most
recent contingent workforce study, Ardent
Partners reports that 95% of U.S. corpora-
tions perceive contingent workers to be a key
element of doing business, and that by 2017,
these workers will account for 25% of the IT
workforce.4
As estimated by Edelman Berland, a global
market research firm, the contingent
workforce is now 53.7 million people strong
in the U.S. alone (see Figure 1).5
It is such a
key component of today’s labor market that
Five Contingent Worker Types
The U.S. contingent workforce can be categorized
into five primary segments.
Source: 2015 online survey by Edelman Berland
of 7,107 U.S. workers, of whom 2,429 were freelancers.
Figure 1
5%
26%
Diversified Workers
(Balance multiple assignments)
Business Owners
(Employ one or more
contingent workers)
9%
Moonlighters
(Fully employed but perform an
additional job after work hours)
25%
Temporary Workers
(Assigned out by
employment firms)
36%
Independent Contractors
(Commit to one job at a time)
(Due to rounding, percentages
add up to more than 100%.)
3
4. Cognizanti • 4Cognizanti • 4
the U.S. Department of Labor will begin to
gather and report official data on its size in
its 2017 “Current Population Survey.” This
is a critical development because it will give
federal and state lawmakers access to “official”
information on the size of this emerging
workforce, as well as the data needed to craft
policy to guide its development.
According to the CIO Executive Council’s
“IT Talent Assessment Study,” 2016 will be a
good year for contingent/gig workers.6
When
the council surveyed CIOs about their hiring
projections for the next six months, 45%
reported plans to hire contingent workers
with specific skills to work on project-based
assignments.
In terms of which projects and skills will be
in demand for contingent workers, a review
of job data from Foote Partners LLC offers
some visibility and insight, naming enterprise
architects, data architects, big data/data
management experts and cyber security pro-
fessionals, in that order.7
Robert Half Inter-
national adds wireless network engineers and
mobile application developers to the list.8
Virtues, Vices of the
Gig Economy
Ardent Partners advises CIOs to tap the
brakes before rushing into a contingent
workforce model. Its study reveals several
concerns, including a lack of visibility and
intelligence into the ultimate ramifications of
this approach, the difficulty of fully assessing
and verifying a contingent workers skill set,
the need to craft realistic budget estimates,
and the overwhelming volumes of federal
and state labor guidelines that come with
employing contingent workers.
The most difficult challenge CIOs face in
onboarding contingent workers is intellec-
tual property protection. As Foote Partners
reports, CIOs have a fiduciary responsibility
to protect confidential product and process
information, “which you don’t want walking
out the door with the contingent worker.”
On the other hand, Foote Partners says,
“contingent workers with the right skills and
talent experience can greatly contribute to
the creation of intellectual property.”
Smart companies balance these risk-reward
IP issues by requiring all contingent workers
to sign a “work made for hire” contract
that ensures the company, not the worker,
owns the IP of the work being performed
and that the firm is notarized as the author
and automatic copyright owner of the work.
Many also have crafted a customized training
course on IP property ownership and confi-
dentiality and require all contingent workers
to take the course before starting work.
Get Ready to Gig
Not only are most CIOs on the gig economy
bus, but some are actually driving it. In my
recent travels and discussions with CIOs, IT
leaders are well beyond the experimentation
phase. By a wide margin, they are engaging
contingent workers on high-value tasks, such
as mobile application development, cloud-
managed services and information security.
Only one CIO mentioned low-level develop-
ment work.
Interestingly, CIOs are not leveraging the
gig economy with the goal of balancing their
budgets. As one told me at a recent CIO
confab, “Many IT executives mistakenly think
cost savings is the primary driver of using
contingent workers. But the project prepara-
tion, detailed scope, design and documenta-
tion costs associated with contingent workers
largely offset any potential cost savings. It is
much more about having access to the best
talent than trying to save a few bucks.”
Surprisingly, intellectual property protection
was not a primary concern for the CIOs with
whom I spoke. One said, “IP is not a big deal.
It is rather straightforward, and in fact, most
contingent workers are quite flexible and
willingly sign the necessary documents.”
Contingent workers typically report directly
to the manager responsible for the project,
CIOs told me. Several mentioned the silver
lining that contingent workers form a solid
talent pipeline and are sometimes eventually
hired into full-time positions.
5. 5
Footnotes
1
Klaus Schwab, “The End of Capitalism – So What’s Next?” The Huffington Post, April 4,
2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/klaus-schwab/end-of-capitalism----_b_1423311.html.
2
In its “The Future of Jobs” report, The World Economic Forum postulated that the fourth
industrial revolution would cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also
to labor markets over the next five years, with enormous change predicted in the skill sets
needed to thrive in the new landscape. See more at: http://www.weforum.org/reports/the-
future-of-jobs.
3
“December 2015: Special Report, Hiring Survey,” Dice.com,
http://media.dice.com/report/december-2015-special-report-hiring-survey/.
4
“The State of Contingent Workforce Management 2015-2016,” Ardent Partners, http://
ardentpartners.com/2014/08/the-state-of-contingent-workforce-management-a-guidebook-
for-2015/.
5
“Freelancing in America 2015: A National Survey of the New Workforce,” Edelman Berland,
2015, http://www.slideshare.net/upwork/2015-us-freelancer-survey-53166722.
6
“IT Talent Decoded,” CIO Executive Council, 2015,
https://council.cio.com/event/it-talent-decoded/.
7
“2016 IT Skills Demand and Pay Trends Report,” Foote Partners LLC, 2016,
http://www.footepartners.com/2012TrendReports.htm.
8
“2015 Salary Guide for Technology Professionals,” Robert Half Technology, 2015,
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~cannata/dbms/web-pages/Class%20Notes/03%20Relational%20
Modeling/03%20RHT_2015_salary-guide.pdf.
Author
Gary Beach is the Publisher Emeritus of CIO magazine. He is also a guest columnist for The Wall Street
Journal and author of the best-selling book The U.S. Technology Skills Gap. He can be reached at
Garybeachcio@gmail.com and on Twitter @gbeachcio.
And one thing is sure: CIOs don’t see the
trend ending any time soon. Those who par-
ticipate in the gig economy said contingent
workers comprise roughly 20% of their IT
staff, and could reach an even split by the end
of the decade.
Further, gig workers seem to like the work
arrangement. According to the reports that
I’ve read, nearly 90% of individuals who have
completed at least one contingent project
claim they will never go back to working
full-time for one company. The schedule flex-
ibility, passion to work on what they want to
work on and ability to learn new skills are the
most cited reasons.
For me, the contingent/gig workforce has a
more interesting moniker. It is nothing less
than the “uberization” of IT work, and taking
it for a test drive in the second half of 2016
would be a smart thing to do. Happy ride-
sharing!