FEATURE: SKILLS & TRAINING
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Skills development crucial
to economic success
Despite having a youth
unemployment rate of
more than 50% South
Africa has a skills
shortage in many areas of
commerce, one of which
is in technology. Michael
Shapiro, CEO at Synthesis,
explains why skills
development is crucial to
economic success.
W
hat exacerbates the problem
is that South African banks
have understood the need to
digitise, and that not doing so will place the
institution at risk.
The rate of change is also a significant
factor. The result is that there is simply no
time to train people for the roles that are
required. According to Alpheus Mangale,
the Group Chief Information Officer at
Standard Bank, his firm was particularly
struggling in trying to fill positions that
TECHNOLOGY
COMPANIES
CONTRIBUTE
SIGNIFICANTLY
TO THE TRAINING,
UP-SKILLING AND
MENTORING OF
THE BROADER
TALENT POOL.
48
INTELLIGENTCIO
did not exist just a few years ago – such
as cloud engineers. As a result, he said
that banks can expect to pay a ‘20-30%
premium’ when they do find such skills.
The good news is that the banks and other
financial institutions need not panic. Along
with global trends, these enterprises should
adjust their thinking and view outsourcing as
a solution to this dilemma. Over the last two
decades, Synthesis Software Technologies
has seen more and more corporates and
finance houses adopting this approach.
understanding of ethical standards
and morph comfortably from a ‘tech’
environment to the environment of a
financial institution. We understand that very
few are born with this capability, which is
why staff training, mentoring and upskilling
is very much part of the culture and not
an addition to it. Broader than the internal
The advantage for them is the talent pool
is constantly being upskilled, can leverage
off the significant expertise in the field and
can provide the best of breed skills with
minimal overheads and low barrier to entry.
Specialised requirements can be co-sourced
into the banks’ teams with ease.
In terms of the industry as a whole,
technology companies contribute
significantly to the training, up-skilling and
mentoring of the broader talent pool, which
ultimately will contribute to the solving of
the challenge.
The launch of new industry players,
Discovery, TymeBank and others will
undoubtedly increase the pressure on the
more established tier 1 banks. However,
rather than panic and try and ‘grab’
whatever skills come their way, I believe
that the outsourcing of skills is an elegant
and sensible option. This doesn’t mean that
companies like Synthesis have an endless
option of trained people to choose from
when looking to employ. On the contrary.
At Synthesis, we are deeply cognisant of
the fact that many of our team might
have skills in some technological areas, but
not in others. In today’s competitive and
demanding environment, this is not enough.
Our team is expected to be able to
communicate effectively and have an
Michael Shapiro, CEO at Synthesis, explains
why skills development is crucial to
economic success
capability, we have launched the Synthesis
Academy, which provides outcomes-driven
onsite training.
Facilitators are among the region’s leading
technology professionals. In addition to
theory, we provide practical skills to our
customers and have social forums for course
discussion and mentoring.
Specialist emerging technologies, such
as cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and
Machine Learning, change how your
business operates, innovates, responds and
scales. These are all offered at the Academy.
The skills shortage in South Africa, along
with the unemployment crises, presents both
the solution and the challenge. Although we
cannot fix the national crises on our own, at
Synthesis we are confident that in our own
way, we are working to make a difference.
One person at a time. n
www.intelligentcio.com