MArket

trends
REPORT
Q1 2011
AUSTRALIA
02 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q1 2011
 03 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q1 2011

Introduction

2011 is the Chinese year of the Rabbit; “a placid year much

welcomed and needed after the ferocious year of the Tiger.
Forecasters talk of good taste and refinement which will shine
on everything whilst people will acknowledge that persuasion
is better than force. It is a time to watch that we do not
become too indulgent but at the same time take advantage of
the fact that money can be made without too much labour.
Our life style will be languid and leisurely as we allow ourselves
the luxuries we have always craved for. A temperate year with
unhurried pace, for once it may seem possible for us to be
carefree and happy without too many annoyances”.

Now I’m not one to read too much in to horoscopes but with
wishful optimism I’d like to think that if even half of this comes
true 2011 should be an excellent year.

The technology recruitment market started without much

delay in the very first week of January as pent up demand from
the end of 2010 rolled over the holiday season and quickly
surfaced in the form of increased job advertisements across
the sector.

This year here at Ambition we’re committed to talking less

about skill shortages and more about skill re-alignment. It’s
clear there is an imbalance between the supply and demand
of certain niche skill sets but what’s equally clear is the need to
address creative albeit often simple solutions to train, mobilise
and deploy people in to those areas of strong demand.

Kind Regards

Andy Cross
Managing Director, Technology
04 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q1 2011

Recruitment Issues

■ Effective goal setting for you and your team – maximise engagement and retention.

■ Competition, internal and external – how to keep it fun and healthy.

■ Bonus time – ensuring everyone gets what you deserve.

Effective Goal Setting

Anyone who has ever set a New Year’s resolution and then by mid-January found they
are re-assessing that objective has perhaps not taken the appropriate steps to align that
objective with some realistic goal setting and action planning. Just as individuals need to
set goals for healthy motivation and focus, so too should teams within businesses.

Many Technology teams operate in functional silos which can create challenges when it
comes to pulling together for common goals. Sure we all pull together for the sake of
company values and vision, and we all like to adhere to a shared view of our company
culture but are they enough to motivate and energise us? For any business or team, setting
goals is very important. It helps them to identify plans for their future and allows them to
create a plan for realising that future. Sounds simple yet so few people actively take the
time to follow the basic steps listed below.

1. Write down your goals. It’s very important to take the time as a team to discuss
what your own personal and collective goals are. A problem shared is a problem halved
and a goal shared is a goal less likely to be ignored. Write your goals down and then
as a group decide how and where you will display them so that they remain visible
and clear to everyone.

2. Set goals that are motivating yet realistic. Sure we all want to double our
profit or claim ground breaking success in our endeavours but remember we are setting
goals here, not dreams. Aspiration is admirable and useful in its place but this is about
creating team unity and focus on achieving a collective objective.

3. Prioritise your goals. Once your goals are agreed then look at what comes first
and perhaps what is the most significant goal to achieve. It’s good to have milestone
goals, particularly when used in the context of achieving a larger (often project based)
goal or outcome.
 05 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q1 2011

4. Set goals for the short and long term. Long term goals help you to plan for
your future and often may require greater time and effort to achieve. Short term goals
can be used as energisers to maintain and fuel motivation and provide a pathway to the
larger objective.

5. Recognise and reward. As each milestone or goal is achieved remember to

celebrate the accomplishment. An important part of personal and team development is
building that feeling of positivity and success and recognising that your efforts have led to
an achievement of a goal or target.

Competition

It’s true that the world is a competitive place and corporate Australia is no stranger to
the kind of salesy, uber-competitive, and often arrogant style of work which lays waste
to cohesive, team productivity. That said there is indeed a very real need for positive
competition both in the market place between organisations and internally with teams or
individual team members.

Without competition Apple would have never created their Ipod, Microsoft would have
never created Windows, and Google would probably be non-existent. Competition
is essential because it leads to one very important thing, innovation and change. The
current education practice is often described as discouraging competition, to create an
environment of support and recognition where everyone who tries is a winner. Many
detractors however argue this is an unreal expectation for our young people to have and ill
prepares them for the real world. So what can you do to encourage positive competition
that brings team innovation, increased productivity, decreased cost and ultimately
business success?

The key to healthy competition is to focus not only on the results but also on the means
of achieving them. Have a code of conduct or rules of engagement which allow people to
exercise their competitive streak but within a framework of what’s deemed corporately (or
ethically) just. Remember that arrogance is poisonous and fosters contempt and distrust
in a team or business, so to maintain that healthy balance be sure to allow winners to win
gracefully and losers to lose with dignity.
06 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q1 2011

Bonus Time

Whenever bonus time rolls around, particularly for those in business sectors where bonuses
form an integral part of their remuneration package, it’s always time to keep a closer eye
on your staff. Every year as recruitment professionals we see a strong shift in recruitment
activity immediately after bonuses have been paid. For many the bonus mechanism is used
as a form of employee handcuff that ensures commitment and loyalty for a period of time
whether that is annual or quarterly. The very real risk however is that once that bonus is
paid the shackles are removed, (figuratively speaking), and so too are the inhabitations that
prevent an employee dusting off their resume and looking for work elsewhere.

The true notion of a bonus traditionally was an extra, out of the blue payment for
exceptional performance; a thank you if you will. Today the situation is very different
and bonus discussion is open, upfront and very much deemed a part of the
remuneration package.

The key to managing this risk is to ensure that bonus payments are not only linked to
achievement of a goal but are closely aligned to review periods and personal development
planning. Money is a strong motivator but the non-financial aspects of many peoples’
roles dictate the need for employers to stay abreast of their employees’ goals and personal
development targets. That combined with a bonus spread out across the year, over
multiple years or even tied to multiple performance hurdles will present a better risk profile
for losing valuable people resources.

In the event that you do lose your staff, remember that’s an ideal opportunity to make the
next bonus discussion head on and with the points discussed clearly in mind.
 07 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q1 2011

Technology Industry News

Computing capacity growth outstrips world economy x 9.

In a fascinating article recently written by Mike Martin of TechNewsWorld, he points to

a study conducted by Martin Hilbert, Ph.D., an information researcher at USC Annenberg
School for Communication & Journalism. That study looked at the changing trends of
informational storage and tracking 60 analog and digital technologies from 1986 to 2007
concluded that computing capacity grew at an annual rate of 58 percent, roughly nine
times faster than the world economy.

What’s of particular significance or rather of mind blowing proportions is the scale of this
perpetual growth. Drawing upon a line from Manuel Castells’ book, End of Millennium the
proposition made is that whilst information today represents the creation of wealth and
power, survival of the fittest relies on the effective collection of the most and the most
useful information. Nearly five years ago over 290 exabytes of global data was stored on
devices of all kinds, translated that’s 61 CD-ROMS for every man, woman, and child on Earth
and counting.

Twitter is like water?

Intrigued? I’d say the audience of the Mobile World Congress were recently when Twitter
CEO Dick Costolo took the stage as the keynote speaker and announced that far from being
a micro-blogging site, twitter was like water. What he was meaning was that Twitter should
be ‘universally accessible and easy to use across all devices and mediums; it should be
everywhere’ he said.

The mission for Twitter remains to make it easy for people to use and to empower those
users to interact on many platforms between user communities. It seems acceptable that
people feel Twitter is a social connector, similar to Facebook or MySpace, but for those who
really engage rather than socialise, it’s about the formation of a relationship that can bring
real and tangible benefits.

And to prove that the growth is very real and much sustained, in 2008 Twitter pulled in
about 27 tweets per second during the American Super Bowl. This year it had 3,000
tweets per second.
08 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q1 2011

Banks lead the way in Technology spend.

Large financial organisations in Australia are tipped to spend around $31billion on IT in

the current year with core banking upgrades topping the list of projects along with cloud
computing, desktop virtualisation and unified communications as the other areas of
investment. The figure represents a welcome return to spending in the Technology market
given the pressures that were placed on the sector prior to and during the Global Financial
Crisis.

MIS Magazine reported recently on a study conducted by ITNewcom, where 50 CIO’s

and senior IT purchasers were asked about their upcoming technology spend. The results
confirm that the Financial Services Industry is still the one to look to when it comes to new
IT investment.

At least that’s the picture in Australia, whilst the global markets are showing a slightly
different picture. Compare Celent’s analyst report which recently released predictions for
growth in financial services IT spend for 2011. The anticipated global spend is anticipated
to tip $363.8 billion on technology with $169.6 billion focused solely on the banks.
A divergence in results with the Australian data however suggests that the bulk of US
spending for example is likely to go to maintaining infrastructure rather than exciting
new projects or innovation.
 09 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q1 2011

Industry Sectors

Applications

The market remains competitive with a strong demand for Java in the financial services
sector. Indeed a significant number of local Java developers appear to either be working
for the main banks or for vendors and consultancies providing services back to those banks.
Hourly and daily rates are back on the rise with a reasonable amount of competition for
the better candidates through premium rates. A marked change in attitude, particularly
where highly skilled resources are needed, has shown employers less likely to haggle over
rates. Instead clients are expecting a candidate to know their market rate and to come
to an interview with an ability to articulate the value they will bring to the position. Local
experience is highly considered at present despite a continued influx of overseas resources
in this discipline.

Demand for SQL and Oracle skills at the moment has subsided with many strong candidates
in this area looking for their next engagement. But on a more positive note the cloud
continues to provide plenty to talk about.

With the 2010 release of Microsoft’s public cloud offering in Windows Azure, Australian
Microsoft experts are predicting more organisations to slowly adopt the cloud solutions
technology, potentially drumming up the demand for certified, trained Azure specialists and
integration specialists over the next 12 months.

Business Information

We are finding Project Managers and Business Analysts in hot demand across all market
sectors at the start of this year, with multiple offers being held by most well skilled
individuals. This places pressure on clients to move quickly and decisively when they see
someone they like or risk losing out to others.

Driving projects are a number of platform transition/integration projects for some of

the major banks along with a number of vendor transitions too. As money becomes a
little more available the talk returns to some of the less essential but equally significant
investments around unified communications projects and provision of more technology
enabled ‘smart office’ environments.

Of particular focus for Business analysts this year we expect Architecture skills to play a big
part, in conjunction with how to effectively align business processes in and around cloud
based solutions. Already more than a buzz word last year Agile methodology will remain
pervasive in how projects are constructed, managed and implemented as Business Analysts
and Project Managers are required to operate as ‘critical point’ change management agents.
10 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q1 2011

Business Information

We are finding Project Managers and Business Analysts in hot demand across all market
sectors at the start of this year, with multiple offers being held by most well skilled
individuals. This places pressure on clients to move quickly and decisively when they see
someone they like or risk losing out to others.

Driving projects are a number of platform transition/integration projects for some of

the major banks along with a number of vendor transitions too. As money becomes a
little more available the talk returns to some of the less essential but equally significant
investments around unified communications projects and provision of more technology
enabled ‘smart office’ environments.

Of particular focus for Business analysts this year we expect Architecture skills to play a big
part, in conjunction with how to effectively align business processes in and around cloud
based solutions. Already more than a buzz word last year Agile methodology will remain
pervasive in how projects are constructed, managed and implemented as Business Analysts
and Project Managers are required to operate as ‘critical point’ change management agents.

Infrastructure

J P Morgan Chase has recently indicated in the press, plans to scrap a number of their
trading platforms over the next three years in an effort to reduce costs and bring increased
internal efficiencies. They are not alone as businesses continue to search for ways to
streamline and improve internal technology infrastructure setups.

As the number of service and help desk roles continue to grow to meet customer demand
for service and support, so too do the more specialist roles of security management,
storage optimisation and network performance. With both business applications and
communications competing to share network infrastructure, the significant reality is that
the network must be managed much more vigorously to perform at peak optimisation.

Once again the number of new providers and indeed products in this space is growing, and
therefore forcing Infrastructure professionals to re-evaluate their own skills and experience.
Deciding which horse to back may seem as arbitrary as deciding whether to learn Java or
.Net but regardless of choice, the chances are they won’t be struggling for work for some
time. A continued demand and rising salaries and hourly rates in these more fractured,
specialist areas point to a rosy future for Infrastructure professionals in 2011.
 11 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q1 2011

2010 has been a year of recovery, rebuilding and

laying solid foundations for future growth. There is a
strong feeling of optimism across most industries
and for what 2011 will bring.
Sydney
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T:+61 2 9248 6200
Melbourne
Lvl 36, 140 William St, Melbourne VIC 3000
T:+61 3 8629 1000
www.ambition.com.au

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