IT Trends for 2010

IT Trends for 2010 say that despite of the ecomonical crisis from 2009, American technology companies will start hiring more IT workers this year but with caution.

"Current predictions of a fragile recovery for 2010 don't reveal the necessary strategic business changes and tough decisions that will be needed to make that happen across all sectors," said Cliff Lineker, BCS strategic business development director.

According to a Robert Half Technology Study to 1,400 CIOs, the 7% will be hiring IT staff in the 1st quarter while 4% will be decrease its workforce. The net 3% increase is up 3 points from last quarter’s forecast. However, IT Executives seem to be careful about hiring because they need to go slow.

BCS says that one of the key priorities for IT Heads in this year are “…to know exactly what skills their IT team possess going into 2010” and “…making sure they have the skilled staff in the right roles to exploit the value of IT consistently and effectively to move the business forward”. After knowing their needs about the IT Staff they could decide to remain the same or add more personnel.

However, many CIOs have recognized that hiring new people has more risks than expanding with an outsourcing partner. When you hire someone directly, you incur in all the overhead that this implies: recruiting processes, benefits, equipment for the workplace, training, payments, etc. with the latent risk that at any time the employee could decide to leave the company.

In the other hand, if you decide to go with an outsourcing partner, you can afford to choose whom to hire, depending on the benefits, qualification and the proposition that is given to you and the one that better fits your needs. In some cases, outsourcing partners can be responsible for the entire process and project, with SLA-like rewards and penalties that are difficult to implement with employees.

The options of outsourcing software development are: Onshore, Offshore or Nearshore. The disadvantages of outsourcing offshore are time zone differences, jetlag when a travel is required and total cost of engagement, etc.

While Nearshore Software Development to Mexico or LATAM Countries give many benefits for the IT Team, especially with regard to software and agile development referred. Indeed CIO magazine has identified 6 IT outsourcing HotSpots for 2010, which includes Mexico.