Companies face a new challenge in a digitized world: there are not enough people with the right digital skills to drive the transformation of their companies today or in the future. To solve this situation, companies must assume a leadership role and transform their methods of attracting, retaining, training and developing talent. This has been one of the main conclusions of the event “Digital Transformation: the challenge of talent”, held by ISDI, a business school specialized in digital technologies, and Salesforce, the world’s leading company in customer relationship management (CRM) technologies.
“The challenge is not only in the purely technological professions, such as IT experts, cybersecurity or programmers”, has explained Jorge Villabona, Managing Director of ISDI CRM. “Workers from very diverse specialties must incorporate digital solutions as common work tools. Digital competences must be transversal, as are language and mathematics, and companies play an active role in developing them ”.
“Traditional education systems are not preparing workers to keep up with technological advances and the skills needed to fill new jobs.”, has explained Enrique Polo de Lara, Senior Vice President and Country Leader of Salesforce Iberia. “An educational revolution is necessary for the work of the future and this transformation must have the participation of companies, which can help cultivate the culture of continuous training, starting by establishing improvements in the skills of their own staff. Companies are the ones that best know what skills are needed and are experts in innovation ”.
In a study commissioned by Salesforce from RAND Europe (Digital Skills Research), it is revealed that currently 87% of managers are suffering or expect to suffer the consequences of the digital skills gap in their workforce. In Europe, 64% of large companies and 56% of small and medium-sized companies are having trouble finding talent for technology-related jobs.
In the specific case of Spain, between July and October of this year, 229,967 job offers were published on portals such as Infojobs, Tecnoempleo or TicJob. From them, 62,670 positions correspond directly to ICT sectors, software development or programming. This assumes that the 27% of registered job offers in the Employment Map of the Fundación Telefónica they are digital. A percentage that continues to rise year after year and that the pandemic has especially driven.
Business transformation, the case of Pelayo
The introduction and deployment of digital technologies implies a profound transformation in organizations, which impacts the culture and workforce of companies. Cristina Rodríguez Moreno, Director of Planning and Commercial Processes in Pelayo, has explained what this process entails in the insurer.
Pelayo is undertaking a Technological and Cultural Transformation and the commitment to CRM Salesforce is a key piece in this process. The objective of its transformation project with Salesforce (called Panthea) is for this technology to be the link between all areas of the entity (sales, service, marketing), placing the customer at the center of all interactions and decision-making , facilitating the development and consolidation towards Omnichannel, which is one of the main lines of its Strategic Plan.
“What we are developing allows immediacy in the implementation of business decision making, maximizing contact with the client and their experience with Pelayo”, explains Cristina Rodríguez. Undoubtedly, the adoption, construction, development and deployment require a significant training effort that allows adequate change management, optimizing the tool and guaranteeing the success of its implementation ”.
The Salesforce Economy
At the event held today, the IDC study “Salesforce Economy“Which concludes that the company, together with its ecosystem of partners and the companies that use Salesforce technologies, will create in Spain 73,800 new jobs and a market of 19,070 million euros in new income until 2026. Likewise, the study concludes that Salesforce is driving enormous growth in its partner ecosystem in Spain, which will earn 5.48 euros for every euro that Salesforce earns.
Several partners of the company have participated in today’s event in a round table to analyze the impact of talent in their organizations and in the market. The round table, moderated by Ana Vertedor, Vice President of Alliances and Channel of Salesforce Iberia, has had the participation of Luis Méndez Coca, director at The Cocktail, Juan José Sogues, Founder & VP CoE Salesforce at Leadclic, David García Fuentes, CEO of OmegaCRM and Ander Jauregui Dominguez, Partner and Chief Strategy Officer of BMind.
The participants in the round table have highlighted that the situation of digital talent has become the critical element with three main consequences:
- Difficulties in assembling teams to develop projects, which can slow down their implementation.
- Wage inflation and pressure on costs
- Strong competition for experienced talent.
Faced with this situation, Salesforce and ISDI propose that both technology companies, their partners and companies that are embarking on digital transformation processes adopt measures to actively participate in the creation and development of talent. These measures include, for example:
- Encourage the employability of unskilled workers through specific training programs.
- Encourage the hiring of trained professionals, but who do not yet have experience.
- Acceptance of a certain level of professional rotation in the teams, seeking the formation of teams with different profiles and levels of experience.
- Bet on “upskilling” policies, evolving the skills of professionals, and “reskilling”, helping to recycle people of different profiles.
- Favoring flexibility, teleworking and conciliation conditions.
- Encourage diversity, seeking and developing talent in groups that have not been considered until now (for example, unemployed women or senior professionals), also helping to combat the digital divide due to gender or age, among others.
Initiative to reduce the digital divide
Related to this last point, the event has also served to present the first results of the Digital Talent Creation Program for Women developed by Talentivo, Salesforce and ISDI CRM. Said program, presented by Cristina Gallego Cáceres, founder and CEO of Talentivo, It consists of offering a free training program for women that allows them to return to the digital labor market.
Talentivo is a digital talent creation and career guidance consultancy that has started its journey with this program aimed at women who, for different reasons and circumstances, have been unemployed for a long time. The program has provided training and certification in technical skills such as Salesforce Administrator, taught by ISDI CRM, and in capacities softsuch as problem analysis and decision making, leadership, communication, planning, teamwork, stress management and control, etc. In addition, the program has paid internships in companies.
The training began on September 13 for 12 women who are already starting their internships, or about to start them, in companies such as VASS, The Cocktail, Leadclic, OmegaCRM, Everis-NTT DATA and Capgemini. It is expected that other companies will join this initiative and that the participants in the program will obtain their certifications in the coming weeks.