David on IT Outsourcing in China: [news] Filling the HR Gap: A No-Brainer Strategy

Friday, June 11, 2004

Dateline: China

Two stories recently appeared in the press based upon findings from my alma matter, The META Group. (See http://tinyurl.com/2gv55 <Computerworld> and http://tinyurl.com/2xyz6 <The Boston Globe> .)

There are several hot areas driving IT compensation higher -- and these, of course, are areas which may be useful for China's SIs as they position themselves for offshore sub-contracting. The Computerworld article cited as hot areas Java and "networking" (pretty broad topic, don't 'ya think), as well as wireless computing and "information security." "(R)espondents cited a continuing need for Internet-related skills such as application development and Java application management. And, just for fun, let's throw in that 20% of the survey respondents are involved in offshoring (but the Computerworld report didn't specify the breakdown between ITO and BPO).

The Globe article was a bit more specific and gave "senior network architects or senior database management staff" as examples of skills in need. More specifics: "IT professionals who are adept at Java, SAP or Oracle, or who have networking, security, and project management skills, are earning salaries that range from a low of $60,000 to a high of $170,000." Now this one got me: "(T)he average base salary for a director of business application delivery -- another term for programmer analyst -- is $172,402, up from $137,191 last year." At the low end, business app developers with no managerial experience earn slightly north of $60,000. Another quote: "People who do enterprise architecture, program managers, people who have multiple language skills are still in demand." The Globe article cited the offshoring stat and noted that "the majority send jobs to India."

Bottom line: Pretty obvious, don't you think? No need to spell this one out -- although I kind of did.

Cheers,

David Scott Lewis

President & Principal Analyst

IT E-Strategies, Inc.

Menlo Park, CA & Qingdao, China

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