Technology:
Portfolio technology
As organizations increasingly look to utilize AI, manage their customer interactions, and make sense of increasing amounts of data, it’s been a busy year for our portfolio technology team, with significant growth across CRM, ERP, AI and data science. Robert Woodhouse, director of technology at Investigo, sees no let up in 2024.
Here are the key areas leaders need to prepare for in 2024:
Relationships to remain key – customers increasingly looking for a tech hiring one-stop-shop.
Growth across the tech portfolio – huge uplift in demand for CRM, ERP, AI and data science roles.
Focus on specialisms – knowledge of a specific technology is advantageous for job seekers.
Relationships have always been key to everything we do at Investigo and during an unpredictable year, the importance of solid and consistent relationships was borne out more than ever. Our customer satisfaction scores in 2023 were significantly higher when we placed more than one role within an organization. As the business world remains unpredictable and new products and upgrades hit the market, we can see this continuing in 2024. Our customers appreciate being able to come to us for all of their technical needs, which in turn will allow us to offer more opportunities to talented people looking for new positions.
We’ve seen significant growth across our specialist markets over the last year. In 2023, there was a 35% uplift in alternative CRM products from 2022. There was also a 25% increase in ERP requirements, particularly in Sage, Infor, SAP and the wider Oracle ecosystem, and professionals with expertise in these areas will remain sought after.
With the end-of-life date looming for ECC6, many organizations are transitioning to SAP S/4HANA and adopting cloud-based solutions. This means ERP, and particularly SAP, will continue to be a dominant player in the enterprise software market. With cyber threats becoming more sophisticated all the time, ERP solutions in 2024 will incorporate advanced security protocols and comply with global data privacy regulations.
But by far the biggest increase in demand from our customers has been for AI and data science related vacancies, which rose by 50% in 2023. Companies want to predict the future whilst avoiding risk and maximizing revenue. Modernizing IT and data platforms will be top priorities for many organizations in 2024 and the data scientist and AI market will continue to grow. Dashboarding and application programming interfaces (APIs) on the frontend will also prove important.
While there’s been a significant increase in demand for tech expertise across the ecosystem, the same can’t be said of the less technical positions. Over the last year, we’ve seen a 10% decline in new requirements for analysts and managers. A generalist’s wide range of skills will always be valuable, but as organizations continue to adopt new technologies and upgrade to new products, job seekers will find that focusing on one specific technology or industry will prove advantageous in securing a new position.
Organizations will continue to strengthen their tech offerings in 2024 so they can better manage their customer interactions at every touchpoint, utilize the constantly shifting beast that is AI, and use data to define their strategic direction. In order to do so, they’ll be looking to hire professionals with expert knowledge in specific technologies and industries, with a particular focus on CRM, ERP, AI and data. With new products being released all the time, tech professionals will need to keep their skills up to date to give themselves the best chance of securing their next role.
