Human Capital in Information and Communication Technology

1. Sekce Prague 14.-15.9. 2009 Human Capital in Information and Communication Technology Doucek Petr, Novotný Ota, Voříšek Jiří Faculty of Informatics and Statistics University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic doucek@vse.cz, novotnyo@vse.cz, vorisek@vse.cz

2. Project Partners

3. Presentation Outline • Research project overview • Methodology • Discussion – Who is an ICT Specialist? • Selected results • Demand side - Analysis of the Czech Republic business sector (ICT Specialists) and its demand for university ICT graduates • Supply side - Analysis of ICT Education sector (tertiary education) in the Czech Republic • Measuring the gap between university study programs and specific ICT Specialist role skill profiles required by business • Prediction of future impact of the current demographic situation in the Czech Republic into the ICT workforce

4. Reasons for the research project initiation • Limited flexibility of formal education system in the area of ICT skills the Czech Republic • Unclear situation in the ICT human resources market (assumptions without real numbers) • Pressure from the business sector (foreign investors, local companies)

5. Project goals To map: • ICT education offered in the Czech Republic • Demand for ICT skills in the Czech Republic To identify: • Topics of university IT educationcourses, number of credits devoted to them • Actual number of students, expected number of graduates in an actual school year and actual number of new students in the first year • Skillsrequiredfornewemployees in ICT To formulate: • Recomendationsforfurther ICT curriculastructureandpredictionofthefuturerequirednumberofstudentsandgraduates.

6. Methodology overview • Who is an ICT Specialist? • What are the ICT Specialist roles covering the majority of demanded ICT related job positions? • How to measure required and provided skills and knowledge and distance (gap) between them? • How to set up the survey in order to get the valid results?

7. Who is an ICT specialist? In the past it was easy to find it out …. …but nowadays? Bill Gates and the Microsoft team (1978)

8. Who is an ICT Specialist? • Current OECD and Eurostat definitions are based on old ISCO88 classification – 20 years old !!!! • Therefore all the official statistic reports do not cover the structure of ICT market properly (missing ICT professionals – business analysts, web designers etc.) • It was necessary to define an ICT professional term and prepare new structure of ICT roles in order to cover the whole ICT market

9. Who is an ICT Specialist? • For the purpose of this project we have described his/her competencies as follows: • Designs and develops ICT • Implements, customizes and integrates ICT applications within an enterprise or another economic subject, thus changes and modifies working procedures and effectiveness of staff • Implements and manages ICT operation including user application support • Manages ICT projects • Manages information services and knowledge provision • Provides and purchases ICT services and products – using professional skills regarding detailed knowledge and effective methods of their use • End users of ICT are not (for the purpose of this project) considered as ICT specialists, even though most of the current university graduates (doctors of medicine, financial experts, architects) are active in data processing and computer aided operations.

10. What are the ICT Specialist professions/roles? • Business Process Analyst/Designer • IS/ICT development and operation manager • Businessman in ICT products and services • Developer / IS Architect • Administrator of applications or ICT infrastructure • ICT Expert user

11. ICT Roles and Professions

12. Example of the role description

13. How to measure required or provided skills and knowledge? • Obligatory for all ICT specialist roles: • High level of creativity, Team work ability, Communication competence, Fluent spoken and written English (other languages) • Facultative (differ in each role) – 17 domains: • They were based on Strawman curricula and other curricula standards • Process modeling (MS01), Application functionality (MS02), ICT service definition and operation (MS03), Architecture analysis and design (MS04), Software engineering (MS05), Data engineering (MS06), ICT infrastructure (MS07), Operational Excellence (MS08), Communication and presentation skills (MS09), Team leadership skills (MS10), ICT market knowledge (MS11), Organizational management methods (MS12), Enterprise finance and economics (MS13), Sales and marketing (MS14), Statistics (MS15), Law (MS16) and Business sectors (MS17)

14. Knowledge levels • In order to compare the “amount” of knowledge devoted to each skill category by university program or by business requirements we have defined non-linear scale as follows: • Level 0 - No knowledge • Level 1 - Overview (relevant to 1-3 credits or intensive training days) • Level 2 - Basic orientation and terminology (relevant to 4-8 credits or intensive training days) • Level 3 - Good orientation and basic practical skills (relevant to 9-32 credits or intensive training days) • Level 4 - Good orientation and good practical skills (relevant to 33-64 credits or intensive training days) • Level 5 - Highest knowledge quality and advanced practical skills (relevant to 65 and more credits or intensive training days)

15. Knowledge profile of study program or ICT specialist role • Knowledge profile is a set of knowledge levels for each of the skill categories • Example:

16. Measuring the gap • Gap is measured as a “number of additional intensive training days” required for a university graduate in order to fulfill the minimum business requirements for relevant role. • The smaller the gap, the “cheaper” it is for the business to employ this university graduate. • The maximum "affordable" gap was set to 60 additional intensive training days.

17. Surveys • Surveys have covered: • All universities effective in the ICT education area in the Czech Republic and their study programs (203 different programs at 52 faculties were evaluated). • Requirements of businesses in the Czech Republic (1002 businesses – sample was based on the structure of the Czech Republic Business Sector). REQUIREMENTS FOR ICT GRADUATES AND ICT EDUCATION: MEASURING THE GAP

18. Business Sector Survey Structure

19. Demand side - results • There were at about 233000 ICT Specialists in the Czech Republic in 2006. • Interesting is relatively small proportion of Developers/IS Architects (VY) and high proportion of Businessmen in ICT products and Services (OB).

20. Structure of the Czech Republic ICT Specialists in the years 2005 and 2006 Legend: BA = Business Process Analyst/Designer, MA = IS/ICT Development and Operation Manager, OB=Businessperson in ICT Products and Services, VY = Developer / IS Architect, SP= Administrator of Applications and of ICT Infrastructure, PU = ICT Expert User

21. Structure of ICT Specialists (by size of the enterprise) • The biggest number of ICT Specialists is employed in the small enterprises (up to 50 employees). Their proportion is at about 85% of ICT workforce.

22. Requirements for ICT Specialists – role Developer/ IS Architect

23. Requirements for ICT Specialists • Employers are giving emphasis not only to the ICT core skills, but also to the ICT soft skills and to the non ICT skills. • ICT CORE SKILS: • Process modeling (MS01), • Application functionality (MS02), • ICT service definition and operation (MS03), • Architecture analysis and design (MS04), • Software engineering (MS05), • Data engineering (MS06), • ICT infrastructure (MS07), • Operational Excellence (MS08), • ICT market knowledge (MS11),

24. Supply side - results • There were 3900 university graduates in ICT study programs in the Czech Republic in the year 2006. Only 2200 entered the ICT labor market. • Above fact was caused by current situation in the Czech educational system where the vast majority of graduates of bachelor study programs continue their studies to the master level without leaving the university. REQUIREMENTS FOR ICT GRADUATES AND ICT EDUCATION: MEASURING THE GAP

25. ICT oriented study programs comparison

26. Measuring the gap • There is no direct relationship between the specific study program and specific ICT Specialist role. • Some study programs form excellent background for any of the defined ICT roles, others are not useful for any of the defined roles. • Graduate bachelors in the Czech Republic do not have (at about 85% of them) appropriate knowledge profile to enter business as qualified employees without extensive additional training. • They are too “expensive” in terms of further education in companies.

27. Measuring the gap • Situation is better for graduates of Master studies • "only" at about 40% of them is not competitive and not able to enter the IT market without extensive training

28. Measuring the gap – Example

29. Prediction of the future situation • Non ICT enterprises do not plan to increase the number of ICT Specialists. • ICT enterprises in opposite plan to increase the number of ICT Specialists to be used to support the projects outside the Czech Republic. • The only reason for possible demand increase are the new foreign investments in the Czech Republic. • Current governmental support for foreign investment (tax holidays etc.) can in long term ruin Czech ICT enterprises – they will have to invest too much money into the workforce education. • If the flow of incoming foreign investment will decrease of if the wages will continue to rise, the required number for new graduates will decrease.

30. Number of 19 year old Czech Republic citizens (in years 2002-2020)

31. Required numbers of students enrolled to bachelor level of IT related study programs Proportion of 19 year old population in % Number of enrolled

32. Thank You for Your Attention Petr Doucek, Ota Novotný, Jiří Voříšek Faculty of Informatics and Statistics University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic doucek@vse.cz, novotnyo@vse.cz, vorisek@vse.cz