Much like other industries, artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing IT. Factors driving the push for AI in IT operations (AIOps) include data’s exponential growth and complexity, increased reliance on edge network devices, and expansion of IT environments and infrastructures across the Cloud. The need for speedy issue resolution is also a key driver of AIOps. A study from Accenture found that 43% of help desk agents routinely handle 100+ issue tickets. AIOps promises to relieve some of the burdens of managing too much data across complex systems.

A common misconception is that AI replaces IT personnel with a “robot.” Instead, AIOps provides a unique opportunity to maximize IT efficiency. AIOps collects, aggregates, and sorts through massive amounts of data to pinpoint root causes of slowdowns, network bottlenecks, and other issues. Trends and pattern analyses can guide IT teams to get ahead of potential problems.

When partnered with an experienced IT provider, AIOps is a potent means of improving customer experiences by improving efficiency, security, and support.

What is AIOps?

Gartner first created the term AIOps (short for artificial intelligence for IT operations) to describe machine learning and natural language processing deployment across IT workflows. AIOps utilizes big data, analytical tools, automation, and machine learning to:

• Collect and aggregate data – AIOps gather enormous volumes of data from various infrastructure components such as networks, security, applications, and issue tickets. As a result, they can monitor the overall health of an IT environment, granting both bird’s eye and worm’s eye views of data flow.
• Filter out signal from noise – Another vital usage revolves around pattern recognition and real-time monitoring of potential issues.
• Diagnose and report problems – AI can quickly and accurately identify issues while offering suggestions on how to remediate the problem.
• Self-heal and automate – Some AIOps systems automate responses or even correct issues without IT oversight. (While this is an attractive feature, CBTS recommends pairing AI automation tools with seasoned professionals to avoid the drawbacks discussed later in this post.)
• Predictive modeling – Through pattern recognition and machine learning, AI can identify future issues and help to prevent them.

Also read: Six ways AI will transform the future of IT recruiting

AIOps customer experience benefits

At first blush, it may seem like AIOps only benefits IT departments. However, in reality, AIOps generates a number of customer experience benefits for end users:

• Greater accessibility to networks and applications.
• Improved support and speedier MTTR.
• Greater productivity and collaboration tools.

Additionally, IT teams and their companies can:

• Reduce operational expenditures (OpEx).
• Breed better developer experience (DevEx) and reduce product time to market.
• Reduce downtime.
• Provide greater security at the network edge.

AIOps helps IT to give customers an extremely reliable experience through real-time monitoring and proactive issue management. AI also improves collaboration across the entire enterprise by de-siloing data. When every department has improved access to analytics, insights can be mined and implemented across the whole enterprise—not just in IT.

Read more: How to move your network security strategy forward with automation

Use cases for AIOps

• Security and anomaly identification: By sifting through mountains of historical data, AI can flag outlying data points that can be indicators of data breaches or other harmful events. For example, advanced threat detection can scan through massive chunks of the Internet to proactively identify malware threats.
• Root cause analysis: A lot of labor in IT is lost to treating symptomatic issues rather than rooting out the issue’s core. AIOps hunts down the root causes of a problem, recommends actions, and even sets up protections to ensure the same issues don’t happen again.
• Performance monitoring: When companies primarily relied on on-premises data centers, monitoring the performance of networks and applications was a more straightforward process. With the prevalence of cloud computing, networks, applications, and processes may be dispersed across a multi-cloud environment. AI helps IT evaluate performance across increasingly complex environments by generating automated reports on usage, storage, availability, response times, and more. For end users, AI provides better information consumption through data correlation and aggregation.
• Cloud migration: As companies transition to the Cloud, rarely can the entirety of their digital ecosystem be migrated all at once. This leads to some very complex hybrid environments that may involve interdependencies between private and public clouds, as well as third-party “as a service” providers. AI creates greater visibility across these dependencies and simplifies the process of cloud management and migration.
• DevOps: AIOps can drive DevOps by further simplifying redundant processes with automation tools and granting developers greater visibility and control without additional effort.

Learn more: Why CBTS leverages Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform for modernizing enterprises

Potential drawbacks of integrating AI

In previous decades, when your car broke down, you would take it to a mechanic who would spend several days ruling out possible issues. Now, a mechanic can simply plug in a device that communicates with the onboard computer and immediately pinpoints the problem. AIOps works similarly. IT professionals now have a much clearer path for finding and fixing the root causes of issues, but skill and experience are still needed to filter out false alarms and to “teach” the AI—which facilitates ongoing improved customer experience.

Lack of context/understanding

When AI is used to execute a vulnerability scan, the raw data may identify upwards of hundreds of thousands of vulnerabilities. Importantly, the scan cannot tell you which vulnerabilities are already protected by other security protocols, and which require attention. There may only be a small number of vulnerabilities that need your attention. A seasoned engineer can interpret these reports to understand and correlate the priorities.

No filter

With the rise of “smart” doorbells, many people have access to a camera that securely monitors their front door 24×7. However, that camera is unable to decipher potential robbers from delivery drivers. Similarly, many AI tools lack the finesse that only comes from experience. Without someone to “drive” it, AIOps can inadvertently create more noise that IT teams must sort through.

Detrimental changes

Like many students, machines that learn sometimes make the wrong connection. An AI managing a switch might pinpoint an “issue” of MDU size. If this is a self-healing AI, it might lower the MDU size globally, disrupting operations for the rest of the switch.

Only an expert can manage AI recommendations and determine when a problem should be remedied. And with expert guidance, the AI “pupil” can make more refined recommendations over time.

How to get the most out of AIOps

Gartner estimates that AIOps usage will rise to 30% this year, a 25% increase from pre-pandemic levels. Driven by increasingly complex technology estates, companies of all sizes turn to AI to gain greater visibility, mine data for insights, automate operations, and increase security. Companies also leverage AI to provide better customer experience through more dependable network access and faster issue resolution. In addition, when employees enjoy greater collaboration enabled by AIOps, they can better serve their customers.

However, poorly implemented or understood AI can have adverse effects. CBTS can build a custom suite of AIOps tools for your business to achieve the most significant results. More importantly, CBTS can help you “drive” AIOps platforms and teach them to recognize the red flags and metrics that are most vital to your organization.

Get in touch to learn more about maximizing AIOps adoption in your business to improve customer experience.

The IT talent gap is one of the biggest challenges facing enterprises today. As companies adopt new tech more rapidly than ever, the demand for experienced IT professionals is greater than the talent pool itself. While this issue is nothing new, organizations continue to have trouble filling critical roles with qualified individuals. For this reason, it’s worth seeking the help of an IT staffing partner to deliver the resources you need.

IT staffing partners can be an invaluable resource as your organization strives to keep up with advancing systems and tech. Depending on your needs, the right consultant can augment your existing staff with highly skilled talent, and some can even provide a full delivery team to manage and staff the project for you. CBTS IT Staffing and Consulting aims to take on the burden of closing the talent gap for your organization by offering all of these benefits and more.

This blog will outline five key questions to consider when choosing an IT staffing partner for your business.

Read more: Companies turn to IT staffing services for digital transformation

Do you have experience as a partner in IT staffing in my industry?

No two industries are alike. Each has individual considerations, requirements, and regulations. It is crucial that your partner in IT staffing thoroughly understands your sector when placing candidates.

CBTS has a proven track record partnering with clients in industries ranging from healthcare to education to large scale retailers. As a result, CBTS has successfully placed candidates in numerous verticals, even when filling niche positions.

Do your IT professionals have experience with this type of project?

Understanding your IT staffing consultant’s previous experience is essential to your success. Whether you’re migrating to the cloud, implementing new technologies, or recovering from a cyber breach, partnering with proven staffing consultants will help you save time and mitigate risks for your business.

CBTS engineers and developers have experience working on a wide range of operations, including cloud, communications, infrastructure, and security services. You can feel confident that you are bringing in an experienced partner for your IT staffing needs when you work with CBTS.

Also read: Identifying your IT skills gap and finding solutions for your organization

Does your team have the proper certifications?

Make sure any potential partners in IT staffing have highly certified professionals on their team. Your unique project may require IT experts with specific backgrounds and certification levels. Whether you need to augment your staff or hire a full delivery team to get the job done, confirm with your IT staffing consultants that their professionals have the proper certifications to work effectively with your organization.

Drawing on years of successful technical recruiting experience, CBTS understands that companies have varying staffing requirements. CBTS employs over 1,200 consultants with extensive experience and certifications.

Do you offer project management services?

As you bring in outside resources for important IT projects, internal and external professionals must work as a single unit. Employing a project manager will keep all initiatives on track to consistently meet your company’s goals. You can achieve cohesion among departments and produce well-executed projects by choosing an IT staffing partner with project management candidates.

Calling on a partner that provides a holistic staffing solution will help you achieve your unique project goals. CBTS works with all manner of IT staff—from project managers and other leadership roles to engineers and architects—to ensure each client’s staffing needs are met.

Also read: Rise to the challenge of managing short-term IT staffing needs

Does your team utilize nearshore or offshore support?

Nearshoring and offshoring IT talent are widely used by IT staffing consultants because they provide the best ROI, large talent pools, and improved scalability for clients.

CBTS offers a unique outsourcing model for clients. It employs a combination of offshoring from India and nearshoring from Canada, bringing you 24x7x365 support with significant cost savings compared with onshore IT talent.

A partner in IT staffing: your solution to the IT talent gap

When your business’s projects require skilled IT professionals, having a trusted partner in IT staffing can accelerate your organization’s success. CBTS IT Staffing and Consulting solutions include project-based resources, staff augmentation services, and full delivery teams.

With our help, you can wave goodbye to your staffing worries and sleep soundly, knowing you have the talent you need for your business to thrive. Partnering with CBTS guarantees you access to highly-skilled, dynamic professionals who are ready and waiting to support your business.

Download our free e-book for more advice on selecting a partner in IT staffing, and read more about our staffing services on our IT Staffing and Consulting page.

The challenge of recruiting, hiring, and retaining experienced IT professionals is not getting any easier. A survey from Harvey Nash/KPMG found 65% of respondents lamenting the lack of tech talent in their organizations. Meanwhile, a 2017 study from LinkedIn and Capgemini revealed that only 40% of enterprises had sufficient digital talent in-house.

As tech-based workloads require skilled technicians, organizations are increasingly turning to IT staffing services. For a fee, companies gain access to top talent without wading into the bureaucratic complexities and capital expense of recruiting and training new hires. CBTS maintains a large pool of certified IT specialists backed by a team of support personnel. Regardless of the obstacle, CBTS offers clients access to people who can optimize any data ecosystem.

This blog will illustrate the benefits of using a third-party consultant for short-term or project-based IT initiatives within organizations of all sizes.

Attracting and retaining the right IT professionals

According to ZDNet, data scientists, IT architects, and security engineers are among the most difficult positions for enterprises to fill. To attract top candidates from thinning graduation ranks, businesses are forced to offer exorbitant salaries and attractive incentives.

Many CIOs are therefore shouldering the burden of complex digital transformation initiatives. Ironically, this forces CIOs to focus on project loads rather than hiring the talent needed to push key programming forward. Even with the ongoing growth of automation and artificial intelligence, organizations still require talent to manage these innovations.

Also read: Rise to the challenge of managing short-term IT staffing needs

New systems require the staffing of fresh IT talent

Legacy systems become more costly and time-consuming to support as the years pass. Additionally, the IT professionals familiar with these systems are steadily nearing retirement age. Recruiting, hiring, and retaining new talent is a must for companies diving into big data, cloud computing, and other cutting-edge technology.

In the search for fresh recruits, organizations are confronting a mountain of compliance demands as well as sophisticated cybersecurity threats. Tasking an IT staffing service like CBTS can solve this issue while also supporting a remote workforce reliant on digital technology. The old model of filling an IT staff with full-time employees simply can’t cope with such multi-faceted demands.

What to know when selecting an IT staffing service

As companies turn toward new technologies, it’s incumbent upon these organizations to hire the right IT professionals. As an IT staffing service that operates across industries, CBTS outlines three key considerations for choosing a staffing partner:

• Figure out what you need first.
• Balance the pros and cons.
• Remember that this is a business arrangement.

Also read: Blended IT organization solves CIO challenges

Identifying your IT staffing needs is a crucial first step

Enterprises should start with an analysis of their IT resources, with a focus on the following areas:

• What are the technology skillset gaps among current team members?
• Are any IT areas currently under-resourced?
• Are there strategic technology projects planned that would require an influx of short-term resources?
• If so, what type of IT talent is needed to bolster the current team?
• Is there access to an IT staffing service provider with sufficient expertise to find skilled personnel?

Ultimately, executives can rely on an IT staffing service partner like CBTS to realize their technical goals.

Weighing the pros and cons of an IT staffing provider

Organizations considering an IT staffing partner should carefully weigh the benefits and risks.

PROS:

• Flexibility –Enterprises hire only the talent they need, saving them both time and expenses.
• Expertise –Staffing servicesfind individuals able to solve the steepest technology hurdles.
• Perspective –External IT experts often notice vulnerabilities and opportunities that insiders miss.
• Pricing clarity –Companies pay a pre-determined price for a defined time or number of resources.
• Resource allocation – Allows full-time IT staff to focus on core company goals.

CONS:

• Attrition and training –Depending on the circumstances, you may have to devote time and money toward the training of temporary employees.
• Dependence –Relying on temps can discourage companies from developing long-term IT talent.

Also read: How to efficiently search for executive technical talent

Don’t forget that this is a business arrangement

The working relationship between an enterprise’s IT management and a staffing services provider can determine the success of a business objective. Enterprises should put in place the following precautions to ensure a job well done:

• Nail down the details –Any external IT staffing services arrangement should be accompanied by a comprehensive contract. 
• Develop a strategy –Organizations should create a written plan describing the aims of the partnership; for example, defining what kinds of work are best done by internal teams and external partners.
• Quantify performance –Ensure each party agrees on metrics and calculation methodologies. This nuanced process usually belongs to an IT staffing services partner like CBTS.
• Assign with care –Full-time leaders must understand the best ways to collaborate with external IT experts.

CBTS offers unmatched IT staffing service capability

Outsourcing IT staffing services is an answer to the many challenges encountered by today’s changing enterprises. CBTS solutions are available in multiple formats to provide flexibility for the toughest tech challenges. These include:

• Project-based resources –These are available across multiple technologies to assist with short- and long-term project work. The client is billed on an hourly or fixed-price basis.
• Staff augmentation –CBTS has nine full-time recruiters able to meet pressing IT staffing needs. Talent is matched with clients through a search of the extensive CBTS database.
• Permanent hires –CBTS also recruits talent for full-time work, using the same due diligence it does for temp contracts.

By harnessing this staffing resource, organizations can inexpensively maintain a scalable staffing environment that matches skill sets with work requirements.

Also read: CBTS – The Premier Provider of IT Staffing, Consulting, and Emerging Technology Solutions

What are the capabilities a staffing service should provide?

Closing your company’s IT talent gap means obtaining workers with top-notch abilities. Aptitudes provided by any competent IT staffing service include:

• Custom application development in Java, .NET, opensource, and more.
• Application modernization in public, private, or hybrid cloud migration.
• Digital solutions for e-commerce platforms, content management systems (CMS), and more.
• Microsoft Power Platform training and integration services.
• Managed scrum development for SDLC, including design, automation, and testing.
• 24×7 monitoring of legacy and modern applications through onshore, nearshore, and offshore resources.
• A complete suite of L1, L2, and L3 services.
• A strong retainer services model.

An IT staffing solution for any industry

IT needs are evolving at a rapid clip across various market sectors. For example, the Dayton Public School District in Ohio recently searched for an experienced IT vendor. The district selected CBTS based on the company’s deep experience in deploying hard-working tech pros. 

The CBTS recruitment team matched the district’s business needs with appropriate IT talent. Consultants delivered help desk and maintenance support while developing first-class software applications and standards. CBTS also assigned a project leader to foster communication between internal staff and CBTS consultants. Consultants were further supported by a consultant care manager who assumed all HR administration duties. Overall, the school district enjoyed a successful staffing partnership that saved precious time and capital.

Also read: CBTS closes technology gap for schools

Developing a skilled IT workforce with CBTS

In today’s economy, efficiency is a key catalyst for success. While emerging data platforms are driving productivity, enterprises cannot ignore talent. An experienced IT staffing servicesprovider like CBTS can be your partner in creating a high-end technology environment.

Contact us today for more information about CBTS Staffing and Consulting Services.

Unprecedented levels of unemployment, combined with a widespread viral epidemic, have created a turbulent atmosphere in the North American information technology labor market. A recent presidential executive order may complicate the situation further.

The executive order has suspended the issuance of H1 visas to foreign workers through the end of 2020, heavily impacting many U.S. businesses that employ IT specialists from around the globe. These affected companies are scrambling to digitalize their operations and find other means, such as “nearshoring,” around this sudden labor gap. Nearshoring is done when a
company offloads a project or projects to external human resources in a nearby country that is located within a nearby or identical time zone.

First, some background. The recent executive order comes on the heels of several months of economic turmoil, during which the unemployment rate in the United States has nearly quadrupled and various public health measures have been deployed in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Citing concern around “excess labor supply,” the executive order is partially intended to protect American workers from potential displacement during this period of record-breaking unemployment. However, lawful permanent residents who had previously been subject to immigrant visas will be granted “open market” employment authorization documents under
this order.

It will remain to be seen whether the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will impact the effectiveness of this measure or deter the country’s return to pre-outbreak economic output.

In the meantime, however, Canada may benefit as a close neighbor and trade partner to the United States during this period of shifting labor resources. With the H1 visa suspension in place, many experts are predicting that skilled migrant workers that otherwise would have brought their talents to the United States may end up working in Canada instead. Additionally, Canadian citizens previously working abroad in the U.S. may be funneled back to their home nation, creating a net labor gain in Canada’s favor.

Some estimates place the figure of Canadians relocating internationally for their careers at roughly 100,000 each year—with the majority entering the U.S. It’s possible that this figure could be affected significantly by this new change in the H1 Visa policy.

In recent years, many large technology companies, including several American firms, have established offices in Canada due to the northern country’s relatively easy access to skilled tech specialists from North America and beyond.

This situation creates new opportunities for U.S.-based firms to continue accessing the skilled IT employees they’ve come to rely on with a practice known as “nearshoring.”

Nearshoring has several benefits over traditional offshoring practices. These include easier communication due to a decreased difference in local time, fewer cultural differences, more convenient travel due to shorter distances, and more.

Enterprises looking to augment their labor pool with nearshoring can ensure better outcomes by working with the right nearshoring partner to suit their operations. CBTS offers several value-added nearshoring services, such as flexible pricing options, flexible hiring practices, a diverse and highly skilled talent pool, project leadership assistance, visa facilitation services, and more.

Contact CBTS today for more information on how a managed nearshoring solution can grant your organization the skilled labor it needs to reach its goals.

For today’s human resource professionals, recruiting for short-term specialists required to reach particular business goals is a crucial challenge. When an organization needs to upgrade existing technology or transition to a new solution, this staffing challenge becomes more complex.

When tasked with finding the right IT expert to carry out a short-term strategic initiative, HR staff members often devote the majority of their time toward filling that role. By diverting their attention, the management team disrupts standard HR workflows, taking away from the day-to-day functions necessary to keep the organization on target for high-priority business and personnel goals.

Short term specialty hires

For your IT department, the strategic initiatives you are recruiting for can range from customizing new technology like SD-WAN to improve cloud application performance, to accessing an expert programmer to build tailor-made interactive software. No matter the goal, challenges can arise when searching for the right IT expert, setting up the contract and benefits, onboarding and integrating them into the project, and extending or closing the project at the end of the term. 

To overcome these challenges, HR personnel will often meet with their internal IT team and other stakeholders to define the scope of the project and the required expertise to develop a plan. In the case of the SD-WAN implementation, for example, the IT team will report on the state of the current MPLS or hybrid WAN environment and desired outcomes for stakeholders, like a better cloud app experience at the branch level. From there, based on in-house expertise, the project leads can decide upon team size and skillsets needed to complete all tasks in the desired timeframe. They will also anticipate and document factors affecting the timeline, potential technical issues during implementation, and customizations required to work with and boost the performance of the existing infrastructure. 

With that input, the HR team and project leads can perform a workforce analysis, examining the details around the project team structure, task optimization, costs analysis, and any other factors that can affect outcomes.

Finding an IT staffing partner to help

With today’s streamlined workforces and often limited budgets to add personnel, project leads frequently find they don’t have the internal resources available for a deep-dive analysis to uncover the gaps. Moreover, many companies now outsource a majority of their HR functions to third-party providers; indeed, the transition of many enterprise workflows is well underway to more agile and digital models. Also, many organizations have partnered with IT companies that offer flexible staffing—for both day-to-day maintenance focused on efficiency and cost containment and for more strategic needs aimed at innovation and technologies to address future business goals. 

Under this bimodal IT staffing model, companies can shift their staffing levels with the technical demands of the business, mirroring the ways they can dynamically scale cloud services in real time. And for their strategic initiatives, the same IT partner can bring in the right skillsets from people with specific expertise within the desired timeframe and budget. In this manner, people responsible for an often time-consuming and expensive search for technical specialists can now direct their attention to meeting both core and strategic business goals.

Read: Companies turn to IT staffing services for digital transformation

Finding qualified IT candidates, however, is just the start of the process Today’s technology savvy enterprises often turn to outside staffing companies for a wide array of employee management tasks traditionally handled by managers and the HR team. Although not all of these functions will apply to specialized personnel, your IT staffing partner often assists with scheduling, payroll, retirement and benefits, training, and professional certifications, among others. The goal is to provide only the services your company needs to maintain quality staff for its everyday and project-oriented workload. 

In an era of intense competition and thin margins, it’s important to recognize when enterprise employees are stretched to their limits. By offloading non-core functions to providers with the ability to deliver higher quality at lower costs, employees can focus on the revenue-generating activities key to a company’s growth and success.

For companies starting or continuing on their digital transformation journey, the decision is easy. To discover how CBTS IT Staffing and Consulting Services can help, download the eBook today.

Technology continues to evolve at an exponential pace. Whether it’s artificial intelligence, cloud computing, or virtual networking, the advancements in technological applications are astounding.

Yet the fact remains that technology is only as good as the people using it.

This means that IT staffing is often a bottleneck for organizations that are trying to innovate and evolve by leveraging new technologies to solve workplace challenges. In fact, the difficulties organizations face in hiring full-time IT staff has become a business challenge of its own.

To overcome IT staffing challenges, consider partnering with a services provider that can supply your organization with short-term, contracted IT professionals.

Short-term contract workers offer cutting edge skills while reducing costs

CBTS helps address the talent gap challenge by providing skilled temporary workers during periods of peak activity.

Short-term contract workers can assist a business moving through a digital transformation, or help a business adapt when the pace of change makes hiring and training a full-time staff person not feasible.

Using contracted IT professionals eliminates an employer’s responsibility for payroll, benefits, and other costly aspects of full-time or even part-time employment.

Hiring part-time contract IT workers also provides a targeted, scalable approach to workforce management. A contract worker’s skills remain at the cutting edge of IT advancements without the need for the employer to pay the cost of continuing education. Likewise, the use of contracted IT professionals allows a business to constantly adjust the workloads to optimally support the business’ needs.

A third-party services provider integrates workers and alleviates HR stress

Managing short-term contracted IT workers brings its own set of challenges.

Businesses that work with short-term contracted IT professionals need to match the right people to the right job, integrate contractual workers into a workforce that includes full-time and part-time employees, and conduct background checks, security clearance checks, and resource assignments.

Businesses that work with short-term contracted IT professionals need to match the right people to the right job, integrate contractual workers into a workforce that includes full-time and part-time employees, and conduct background checks, security clearance checks, and resource assignments.

By working with an experienced IT service provider, the enterprise can bring in workers who are fully trained in a wide range of disciplines.

Working with a third party can also alleviate stress on human resource departments by eliminating the need for tasks such as timesheet management, expense reporting, and scheduling.

Third-party IT providers also train the staff they provide, which means contract workers will have cutting edge training and expertise in high-tech environments. Third party staffing providers have a wealth of resources at their disposal to meet any IT need, including outside consultants, support from professional organizations, and technology vendor expertise.

Working with a third-party IT staffing provider turns your workforce into the agile, team-oriented organization that is necessary to compete in today’s environment. The organization will be able to match tasks with appropriate skill sets, especially when those tasks require specialized expertise in cutting-edge technologies.

Learn more about how CBTS IT Staffing and Consulting services can help your organization address the IT talent gap and contact CBTS today.

Finding the right executive talent to manage a rapidly evolving technology environment is proving to be one of the most significant challenges facing the enterprise in this age of digital transformation.

The fact of the matter is, those who are qualified for senior-level IT jobs have spent the bulk of their careers overseeing the static, silo-laden infrastructure of the on-premises data center and have only recently come to grips with the scalability and availability of the cloud. In short order, however, both of these environments will become steeped in artificial intelligence, system autonomy, and a host of other technologies that will not only remake data infrastructure itself but also business processes, services, and perhaps the entire business model.

This puts the enterprise in an unstable position when it suddenly finds itself without a key player since it can leave a major gap in day-to-day operations or even bring key processes to a standstill. With the business at risk, then, the faster you can fill that job with a qualified candidate and then transfer the necessary knowledge, the faster you reduce the severity and duration of the situation.

Attributes technically-inclined executive talent should have

The problem that most organizations encounter is that the pool of candidates possessing the right experience and leadership skills is limited. Ideally, you need to find not just a good manager but a technology visionary with the following skillsets:

• Communications. When working with non-technical executive leadership or front-line employees, the candidate must be able to translate complex technology solutions in ways that are both relatable and compelling. Likewise, they must be able to understand the needs and concerns of others as they relate to the mission of the organization.
• Foresight. The ability to seek out mission leaders and champion new initiatives, even in the face of internal blowback, is essential. This skill must apply not only to new deployments but in supporting ongoing programs as well.
• Deep knowledge. Tech leaders should have a broad knowledge of technologies and technology initiatives and should be fully versed in the impact they will have on legacy operations and future goals. The ability to determine risk and evaluate risk ownership is also a key attribute.
• Leadership. Mentoring, monitoring, and managing both individuals and teams is a crucial aspect of the job. Successful project management is also required, as is longer-term strategic thinking.

Laying out the requirements for top technical talent is one thing, actually finding qualified candidates is quite another. A typical mistake is to rely on internal HR and other sources to locate and vet candidates when there are specialized consultants and staffing services that can tap a far wider range of resources to acquire senior-level candidates.

CBTS provides access to top executive talent

At CBTS, we provide quick access to top executive talent with all of the skills needed to take control of demanding technical environments. Since we are at heart a technology company, we understand the technical needs of our clients and what it takes to achieve success in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Our subject matter professionals prescreen all potential candidates to ensure they are experts in their respective fields and maintain all the necessary training and certifications. We also provide a range of staffing solutions, from temporary placements to maintain operations while permanent hires are being vetted, to the transition of the temp executive to full-time status should they turn out to be the right person for the job. Either way, the enterprise saves time and money during the appointment process and lessens the risk of a bad hire or termination.

Conclusion

Despite all of the advanced technology that has come to bear on the modern business model, the most valuable enterprise asset remains its human talent, particularly those at the top of the organizational structure. Vacancies at this level must be filled quickly but not carelessly. By turning to outside help like CBTS, organizations will find that they can satisfy both demands with a temporary hire in conjunction with a thorough, professional candidate search.

For information on how CBTS can help with your staffing needs, please visit: https://www.cbts.com/consulting-services/it-staffing-and-consulting/.

Read more: Companies turn to IT staffing services for digital transformation

School systems are under immense pressure to do more with less. Parents and voters insist administrators demonstrate and document continuous improvements in learning outcomes. And students are forced to master advanced technologies at every level, from elementary school to college to the workplace.

Administrators can work toward closing the technology gap for urban schools and stay competitive, but they are often forced to provide substantial evidence that IT investments will generate a return, both in the classroom and the community.

Confronting legacy systems

When the Dayton Public School District (DPSD) began its search for an experienced, primary IT partner, Information Systems Committee members knew they needed a more comprehensive approach to technology. Stakeholders would closely scrutinize any investments, and committee members wanted to ensure the technology infrastructure and resources would meet ever-increasing demands.

The urban school district had disparate legacy systems, and needed a partner to lead an all-encompassing review of the environment and develop a long-term technology roadmap to support its strategic vision.

The district needed centralized management by a single IT partner to ensure all systems and services would function together securely and reliably. The partner would be responsible for addressing the IT talent gap, including project management and delivery of comprehensive services from help desk, training, and break/fix maintenance to hosted ERP support, setting software standards, application development, and network monitoring and management.

Dayton’s roadmap to technology recovery

Before CBTS consultants began assessing the district’s infrastructure to set priorities, they worked with school leaders to define the technology challenges they needed to overcome:

• User experience. DPSD had to deliver high-capacity, rich user experiences across a vast array of devices, audiences, and technologies.
• DPSD technology needed to address the different security threats faced at each academic level to protect students, staff, and the institution.
• Aging systems. The district wanted to confront limitations of its legacy systems and network infrastructure to improve performance.
• District technology required increased performance and service quality to support both current budget levels and cost reductions over time.
• DPSD needed the ability to scale technology to account for changes in the system when schools open, close, or consolidate.
• Limited IT staff. The Dayton district required expertise beyond in-house IT personnel to design and implement advanced technologies and the latest security strategies.

CBTS recommended a holistic, vendor-neutral approach, with specialized assessments to be performed by CBTS and subcontractor consultants for each IT area of expertise. The CBTS project manager orchestrated the assessments and timeline, and from the collected data, CBTS created a technology plan defining current and future infrastructure needs that align with the district’s strategic plan.

CBTS reins in costs with best-in-class partnerships

By engaging proven, certified experts in each IT discipline, CBTS reined in costs for implementation and ongoing management, dividing work among:

• CBTS: Project management, technical coordination, network management, Novell support, and asset management.
• CDO Technologies, Inc.: Desktop, software implementation, integration services, and training.
• Nu Vision: Telecommunications support.
• Platinum Technologies: Helpdesk support, application development, and desktop rollout.

This arrangement gives DPSD access to highly skilled IT talent and industry best practices to help internal IT staff overcome technology challenges so they can focus on supporting the district’s five strategic goals:

• High-quality education. Acquire the technology teachers, staff, and students need to develop skills for success and ensure a safe and secure environment.
• High-quality faculty and staff. Give teachers the technology to innovate in the classroom and communicate effectively with students, parents, community members, and other staff members.
• Engage parents. Use technology to connect parents and support them as allies in each student’s education and development.
• Community collaborations and partnerships. Build trust and support through secure, stable, and fast technology solutions connecting the district to community members and partners.
• Fiscal responsibility and accountability. Find ways to increase technology performance, reliability, and security while reducing overall costs.

Learn more about the CBTS partnership with DPSD here. Discover more about how CBTS delivers state-of-the-art technology for today’s schools and universities to keep up with the ever-increasing demands of students, parents, faculty members, administrators, and community stakeholders. We’re closing the technology gap for urban schools and ready to explore your education system challenges.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is impacting all industries and changing the way organizations operate at every level. AI developments support programs that ease the burden of many operational tasks. There are even some cases where this technology has the power to make certain jobs obsolete. So with AI taking over more and more complex operations, what is the relationship between AI and recruiting and, have recruiters become a thing of the past?

The answer is a resounding “No.” In fact, recruiters play an increasingly important role in the IT industry. The IT gap has made it difficult for companies to find experienced, certified IT professionals to support their business, and IT leaders are turning to staffing partners for everything from project-based resources to full-time hires.

Here are two key reasons why AI cannot fill the vital role that recruiters play in the IT industry.

1) Recruiting means building relationships.

Recruiting at its core is about fostering relationships—with the company you’ve taken on as a client, and with prospective IT professionals. Nurturing connections with IT professionals and learning about their desired career paths, skills, and who they are as individuals are essential parts of successful recruiting. The key is working with clients to identify their IT goals and assess which candidate will help achieve desired outcomes.

While AI may be able to identify candidates with a preferred skill set, it lacks the ability to build strong relationships with both the client and those prospective candidates.

2) Soft skills are just as important as experience and certifications.

Looking “good on paper” isn’t enough for most organizations. The right IT professional needs to have soft skills such as good communication and problem solving in order to succeed in their role.

Some candidates choose to list these skills on their resume or cover letter, but validating that the individual truly has these attributes often takes extensive screening and several face-to-face conversations.

New technology can help recruiters improve their process.

So what role does AI play in the recruiting process? New technologies are improving the daily workflow. Programs are now managing database systems, scheduling interview appointments, connecting with clients, and easily reaching new prospects. These platforms improve efficiency and allow recruiters to focus on successfully placing resources.

AI technology continues to grow and develop, and the benefits in streamlining processes and techniques are obvious. Just remember that AI cannot replace the soft skills that humans possess when it comes to building relationships and identifying essential qualities in potential candidates.

CBTS IT Staffing and Consulting solutions offer project-based resources, staff augmentation resources, and permanent hires. We have a team of more than 900 full-time consultants and a database of more than 40,000 IT professionals to help meet your needs.

AI isn’t replacing recruiters, but we do believe AI has the power to help our IT staffing and consulting team do their jobs even better. To learn more about AI and recruiting, download our free guide, “Six ways AI will transform the future of IT recruiting.”

The technology challenges come at you from all angles.

You need the right talent to keep the executive suite happy. There’s never enough time or money to do everything with full-timers. You need a blend of excellent full- and part-time experts to wrangle legacy technologies and stay competitive.

A blended IT organization deploys full-timers, part-timers, and contractors to drive the most benefit in the shortest time frame at the optimum budget. Here’s a look at four core challenges you can address with a blended IT organization:

1. Experienced experts are hard to find (and costly to hire)

Recruiting, hiring, and onboarding full-time technology experts can be exasperating for employers and employees alike. For instance, CIO.com reported on a recent survey which found that companies take an average of more than four weeks to hire a full-time technology employee. The same study found that about two-thirds of non-management technology workers said they’d start losing interest in a company if they had no follow-up within two weeks of an interview.

Employing the most in-demand IT professionals can put a dent in your payroll budget. Consider these sample annual salaries from U.S. News & World Report:

• IT manager: $135,800
• Computer network architect: $101,210
• Software developer: $102,280
• Information security analyst: $92,600

Note: These are median salaries, so half of these jobs pay even more.

A blended IT solution, by contrast, can put experienced IT professionals to work within days. Often, they have the precise training and certifications for your business needs. And they can do IT work at every level, from beginning coder to veteran system architect.

Related: CBTS helps CIOs address IT gap.

2. Your IT team has limited resources—but your organization has high expectations

It’s the nature of IT processes to deliver efficiency gains that help an entire organization get more production from fewer people. IT leadership cannot escape the pressure to squeeze greater performance from finite resources.

A blended IT team can help you improve technology performance without hiring more IT people. Your staffing partner can mix and match talent with part-timers, project-based workers, and highly skilled specialists who can fill in when you need them.

You pay only for the labor you need—and at a predictable rate. If your project requires four people for exactly 17 days, your IT staffing partner can find them and put them to work much faster than you ever could on your own. When the 17 days are up, your costs end.

3. Your legacy systems pose more challenges as they age

Enterprises often stick with legacy technologies because the tools may still suit their needs and implementing a new system can be expensive.

But these legacy systems become more expensive to maintain with every passing year. The experts in legacy tech are hitting retirement age, and colleges aren’t training people to master old-school systems.

However, legacy-system experts have not vanished. It’s just difficult to find them and put them to work on your projects. Moreover, technologies like APIs and service layers can help you pull more performance from your legacy systems.

A consultant who specializes in placing IT experts in blended environments will help you find the savviest solution to your legacy technology challenges. Some old technologies will have to be replaced eventually, but you can mold that replacement to your unique business needs if you have a strong staffing partner.

4. Your organization needs to evolve and innovate ASAP

Venture capitalists are pouring billions into startups angling to push incumbents to the sidelines. Cloud technologies, the Internet of Things, AI, and big data present beguiling opportunities to build a moat around your organization and fend off disruptive threats.

It takes best-in-class talent to tap these opportunities. And that talent could be distributed across a half-dozen disciplines and a few dozen technology certifications. Most likely, you don’t need full-time staffers to handle this work. You’re more apt to need a project team that can design a solution, implement it, and train your staff to use it within a tight time frame.

Rapid-fire digital transformation requires talent targeted with laser precision. You might have some of the expertise you need on staff, but you’re far more likely to require highly trained specialists for short-term projects. Typically, your only chance to cover all your bases is to work with a veteran IT staffing consultant.

Staffing up with CBTS Consulting Services

Over the past three decades, CBTS has solved sophisticated IT challenges for companies in every industry. Delivering these solutions required us to contract with highly trained IT professionals across all the most common technology disciplines (and many of the uncommon ones).

Everything we’ve learned about matching IT experts with difficult challenges has gone into our Consulting Services. We have a database with more than 40,000 IT professionals who can do pretty much everything.  Our staffing solutions can place IT experts in your organization while we handle all the payroll details.

To find out how a blended IT structure can help your organization address IT challenges and unleash innovation, please download our free guide.

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