Scarcity of IMS Skills Challenges Vendors’ Ability to Meet Demand By Scott Carter
By Scott Carter
Reading UK, 28th February, 2006 – IMS promises to de-mystify the Telecoms world by offering its functions and features in a language that the IT application community understands, providing a new generation of integrated applications.
IP Multi-Media Services (IMS) are designed to deliver Value Added Services, such as the ‘virtual receptionist’ and to provide Transparent Number Services, allowing the user to ‘take’ their desk phone, computer or video-conference to any location. However, this new breed of architectures, protocols and applications are also designed to bridge the gap between the black-art of networking and more generic IT skills.
As the demand for IMS applications and services grows, vendors are looking to hire sales, pre-sales, professional services and support staff to support their increased demand. The ideal candidate is a seasoned and flexible professional, with a deep understanding of carrier-class networks, the IMS integration layer (Jain, Parlay etc) and industrial-strength IT technologies such as Middleware applications. Here is the challenge: As the IT and Telecoms industries converge, where do we find the staff that understand, and are credible in, both IT and IP?
Add the relative immaturity of IMS to the mix and we start to understand why vendors are finding it so difficult to find the right skills. Whilst working on an IMS related search recently, a senior consultant within the hardware community summed this up for me: “IMS is such a new area; there are no books on the subject, and very few experts; if you know IMS, you have started with the standards and worked it out yourself. That’s why there are few people around at the architectural level and practitioners are even rarer”.
Significant challenges also lie ahead for employees, who need to adapt to the new cross-functional paradigm where Telecoms is a functional toolkit rather than a Network in its own right. As an example, IT vendor BEA Systems recently announced its strategy to cross the technological divide and provide IMS services as an extension to its WebLogic middleware platform.
As there are so few appropriately multi-skilled candidates available, employers need to look across wider geographies and more varied technical skillsets. A significant portion of IMS research & development has been performed in Scandinavia; this region, and associated technologies such as Intelligent Networking are good hunting grounds. Employers will be forced to hire ‘natural explorers’, talented professionals who know how to navigate through this unchartered territory. For the past few years, employers have been hiring selecting staff that are experienced and ‘ready to deliver’, so this will require a major change in employer behaviour and a longer term outlook.
About Allan|Carter:
Allan|Carter is a niche recruitment partner for European high-growth businesses in the Communications and Technology sector. Allan|Carter has been providing the industry’s leading companies with talented candidates since 1999. The fast, cost-effective recruitment solutions that Allan|Carter is able to achieve for their high-growth clients, as well as their focus on this market, has established them as the leading search company in the field. For more information please see www.allancarter.com