The changing face of the IT industry

Martin Courtney

The recession is seemingly on the brink of a turnaround and IT companies are leading the way, at least according to a recent confidence survey by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Confidence can be ephemeral, and unfortunately, the survey does not tell us what we really want to know: why IT firms feel more confident about the future, and whether that confidence is based on tangible improvements, such as revenue income, customer order or operational efficiency enhancements.

You might have expected more from a study which, without a hint of irony, weighs in with the line: “Wales is now the most confident part of the UK.” Surely such assurance has more to do with the Welsh Assembly subsidising training schemes at firms making redundancies, rather than any national tendency towards self belief?

One IT company not feeling more confident is BT. The telecoms giant has scrapped its graduate recruitment scheme, blaming the recession and ongoing staff consolidation. In contrast to the Welsh Assembly, there is no help from Gordon Brown here, just another blow for any student looking for the first step to an IT career.

A new route into the industry might be to study social, rather than computing, science, according to Gartner. The analyst’s prediction, that technology expertise will take a back seat to skills in studying and exploiting human behaviour on the internet, seems ludicrous at first.

But anything can happen in marketing, especially with the financial backing of executives who should know better. A good example is the Metropolitan Police, which is employing consultants to analyse sites such as Flickr and YouTube to discover how the capital’s police are perceived among internet users, and definitely not to monitor radical views or any disposition towards attending political demonstrations.

The risk in this is finding out only what one demographic feels, and consequently ignoring the silent majority not using social media.

At least Facebook et al give dole-bound students something to do with their time ­ – perhaps one of them will create a virtual version of Wales where we can all feel more confident.