(Image source from: business.org)

Analytics, user experience, automation, IT architecture, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are some of the technical skills that are in the greatest demand today, new research from Indian IT company Infosys revealed Thursday.

For the study, Infosys looked at two perspectives on the impediments that prevent sufficient demand and tangible and intangible barriers to talent.

According to the report titled ‘Infosys Talent Radar 2019’, initiatives found to be in requirement of people with sophisticated technical skills and the ability to frequently update those skills as cycles continue to cut down.

The five technical skills in greatest demand today are analytics (67 percent of digital initiatives), user experience (67 percent), automation (61 percent), IT architecture (59 percent) and artificial intelligence (58 percent).

In digital projects, soft skills have become just as important as technical ones as they are focused on creating superior customer and employee experiences.

Among tangible barriers, lack of budget is found to be the biggest barrier to repurposing efforts, followed by lack of management awareness or support, organizational issues, and inadequate talent management plans.

Among intangible barriers, the research found that learnability received a brief time for confession and it places a limit on the tremendous potential of reskilling as a competitive advantage for companies that embrace learnability.

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Infosys, Pravin Rao said:

There is not just a talent war - it's a famine. To succeed, companies must hire, develop, and retain talent better than their competition. As enterprises progress in their digital journeys, the winners will be those who utilize multiple hiring sources and reskill workers in a culture of lifelong learning - invest in their people, who are the ultimate differentiator in a commoditized world.”

The report says soft skills that emphasize collaboration are just as important as technical prowess. For example, the soft skill empathy is essential for design thinking, whereas learnability is crucial to the continuous personal and technical development essential for today's digital talent.  

The Infosys Knowledge Institute conducted an online survey taking in more than 1,000 Chief Experience Officers (CXOs) and other senior-level respondents from companies with income greater than $1 billion from India, Australia, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

By Sowmya Sangam