Our Business Director, Carl Vellenoweth talking with CTRM Center and ComTech Advisory about the new breed of commodity technology workers who were fortunate enough to combine business with location and lifestyle.
Source CTRM Center & ComTech Advisory.
Periodically, I read articles about a new breed of independent workers who were fortunate enough to combine business with location and lifestyle called ‘digital nomads’. It wasn’t lost on me that this is an apt description of myself as all I need is an internet connection and I can work anywhere. I simply choose to stay in my current location! In talking with Carl Vellenoweth of Adaptika last week, however, this term came up in relation to commodities. “London is like a ghost town,” he told me. “Most people want to work from home like digital nomads. Things are changing.” The conversation that followed got me to thinking…..
The Old Model is Breaking Down
Back in the old days of CTRM, the large vendors had created an employment trail. Anyone with Endur or Allegro, for example, skills could become a contractor and find well paid work/ The large consulting firms would also hire, win projects around the larger products and their implementations, and feed staff into those projects. They could send fairly junior staff and have them trained on the customer’s nickel while still doing activities needed on that project. “The old model is breaking down.” Carl told me. The issue is that not only are buyers gravitating towards more agile and modern solutions from a different set of vendors, but that much of the work is now in the cloud and by necessity, remotely done. Buyers want more agile and cheaper products for many reasons as we have iterated many times in this blog, but those vendors are usually too small to have developed a pool of knowledgeable resources in their wake, and the implementation doesn’t require an army of consultants on-site.
The new talent ecosystem is about transferrable skills, flexibility and availability to work on new projects.
“There is a new talent ecosystem,” Carl said. “People are not so willing to be permanent employees and they want to cherry pick who they work for and what they do. They want interesting work and control over their own destiny. The new talent ecosystem is about transferrable skills, flexibility and availability to work on new projects.” The digital nomad may well be the employee of the future. As people have become used to working from home and having employees working from home, both employer and employee have discovered unanticipated benefits and advantages and whatever happens around COVID over the next several months, working remotely is likely here to stay to a significantly greater degree than in the past.