 |
|
| CURRENT SECTION :: News | UK's most visited IT Contractor Site - 250k unique visitors March 2008 |
|
 |
Despite the UK’s economic slowdown, the nation’s technology industry remains cautiously optimistic, a sample of IT leaders has shown. However members of a leadership network for Intellect are less upbeat today than they were in recent years, suggesting the industry may be at a “pivotal” point. Their responses show that they see opportunities for growth emerging more quickly than in the past, but these chances also disappear more quickly, if they appear slow or unprepared. Partly as a result, the post-credit crunch mood in the technology sector, which accounts for 10 per cent of the UK's GDP, emerged as mixed. For example, outsourcing and systems integration firms have capitalised on the tougher times, as jittery clients have tried to increasingly squeeze more out of their IT budgets. Software and hardware sellers, in contrast, have been hit much harder, as clients opt to delay, scale back or cancel their orders, where practical, until conditions improve. Intellect said there are six key areas that the state and the IT industry need to develop otherwise the industry “will not continue to grow and will not reach its full potential.” They are: more skills in the workforce; higher professional standards in the sector; improved trust and confidence in the sector; better cross-sector relations; better communications technology and better exploitation of innovation. It is ‘innovation’ which the IT industry does pretty well – it won 74 points according to Intellect’s indicator, way ahead of ‘growth’ (32 pts) ‘reputation’ (64 pts) but behind industry’s primary strength; ‘customer value’ (78 pts). But non-profit skills group NESTA warns that UK innovation is close to losing out to some of its international competition, such as China, because it doesn’t have the kit to back it up. The group will tell Gordon Brown this week that while Britain has some strengths in high-technology, notably in pharmaceuticals and aerospace, even in these areas it is in danger of falling behind. Extracts of the group’ s report on innovation, seen by the Times, state that Britain lacks large-scale, high-tech manufacturing and that the growth of high value-added activities in China is going hand-in-hand with rising levels of innovation in the nation’s economy. “Our industry by itself contributes 10% of UK GDP but its indirect contribution through other industries is much greater,” said Sean Finnan, Intellect’s president. “Creating the conditions that make technology companies choose to invest in the UK is an important part of the economic success of the country.” The latest reading by the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index, which measures the attractiveness of a country to do business in, ranks the UK in ninth. But the WEF said that changes to how the league table is compiled mean that although Britain came from tenth place (2007); its competitiveness had in fact deteriorated markedly in the past year. This is in contrast to the US, which retained its title as the world’s top destination for business. The WEF index shows the US is also the ninth most ‘technology-ready’ country, way ahead of the UK, in sixteenth, but far behind Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands and Denmark, ranked first, second, third, fourth and fifth respectively. Nonetheless, Intellect said that, for the UK economy, the IT industry a “cornerstone;” albeit one that needs more support in six areas, with currently one in 20 of the workforce serving it as a professional. May 20, 2008 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
|
|
   |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All content © Contractor UK Limited | http://www.contractoruk.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1[Register for News Letter] | [Privacy Statement] | [Terms of Use] | [Top of Page] |