Top 10 Trending Skills For Technology Executives

Do you plan to work as a technology executive?

If you want to work as a technical and executive lead for digital transformation initiatives, you need to acquire these ten critical skills.

Technical executives cover breath rather than depth. There are hundreds of topics that they need to understand at least at a basic level.

In this article, I introduce the top ten skills that executives leading technical or Technology departments, especially in digital transformation programs, need to understand. I briefly introduce each skill. I joined some relevant ones to fit into the top ten.

1 — Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has become mainstream in large business organisations. Adaptation of Cloud computing was very rapid. Cloud is used as a transformational tool.

The cloud service model can expand or reduce computer resources based on service requirements. For example, Cloud can provide the maximum resources when we need a large amount of computing power or storage capacity for a specific task at a particular timeframe. Then we can release these resources after completing our particular mission. This elasticity and scalability provide a value proposition for digital transformations.

The ‘Pay per use’ concept is another essential characteristic that the Cloud services model provides. The resources can be consumed based on the usage amount. Usage could be on a short- or long-term basis.

The recent commercial trend for using virtual machines in publicly available Cloud services is based on three types of instances: on-demand instance, reserved instance, and spot instance.

In on-demand instance, there is no long-term commitment. Reserved instance is relatively longer-term with a substantial discount compared to on-demand usage. In the spot instance, the price is agreed upon based on bidding.

2 — IoT (Internet of Things)

Rather than technical details, technology executives must understand IoT’s business value due to its critical impact on generating new business opportunities. Substantial progress has been made in many disciplines due to IoT in creating new services and products. Some of these disciplines include environmental monitoring, manufacturing, infrastructure management, energy management, agriculture, healthcare, transportation, IT, electronics, material sciences and banking.

It is noticeable that IoT technologies are emerging in the market, and IoT solutions are growing exponentially. Some organisations estimate billions of devices in the next few years to connect to the global IoT ecosystem.

Consumers and service providers have an incredible interest and focus on this fantastic Technology powered by the internet.

The generation of new business for companies and new job roles that we cannot name yet is imminent. Some believe that the IoT can be as important as the emergence of the internet itself.

Some even point out that it can be the next big thing in our lives. These are, of course, speculations, combined with some media hype; however, time will tell whether the high expectations of IoT will be met.

One key fact is that IoT is one of the primary enablers of digital transformation initiatives; hence, it is an essential skill that these leaders need to possess.

3 — Big Data and Data Analytics

Big Data and Data Analytics are essential technology domains that executives need to understand and use for creating insights and competitive advantage for their organizations.

Even though architecturally similar to traditional data, big data requires newer methods and tools to deal with that data. The conventional methods and tools are not adequate to process big data. The process refers to capturing a substantial amount of data from multiple sources, storing, analysing, searching, transferring, sharing, updating, visualising and governing vast volumes of data such as petabytes or even exabytes.

Ironically, the main concern or aim of Big Data is not the amount of data but more advanced analytics techniques to produce value out of these large volumes of data. Advanced analytics refers to approaches such as descriptive, predictive, prescriptive, and diagnostic analytics.

Descriptive analytics deals with situations such as what is happening right now based on incoming data. Predictive analytics refers to what might happen in the future. Prescriptive analytics deals with actions to be taken. Diagnostic analytics ask the question of why something happened. Each analytics type serves difference scenarios and use-cases.

Big Data Analytics is a comprehensive business-driven discipline. It aims to make quick business decisions at a high level, reduce the cost for a product or service, and test new markets to create new products and services. Big Data analytics are used in all industries; the most commonly used industries are health care, life sciences, manufacturing, government, and retail.

4 — Machine Learning And Text Analytics

Machine learning refers to computer systems learning and improving based on their understanding from analyzing large volumes of data sets without programming. It is part of the artificial intelligence domain in computer science. Due to its usefulness and impact, machine learning has become a vital technology and tool for digital transformation.

Text analytics include computational linguistics, machine learning, and traditional statistical analysis. Text analytics focus on converting massive volumes of machine or human-generated text into meaningful structures to create business insights and support decision-making.

There are various text analytics techniques. For example, IE (Information extraction) is a text analytics technique that extracts structured data from unstructured text. ‘Text summarisation’ is another technique that can automatically create a condensed summary of a document or selected record groups.

Test summarisation is especially useful for blogs, news, product documents, and scientific papers. NLP (Natural Language Processing) is another sophisticated text analytics technique interfaced with questions and answers in natural languages, such as Siri in Apple products.

5 — Cybersecurity and Blockchain

Security is a necessary skill for all digital transformation executives.

Cloud Computing, IoT, and Big Data also mandate security at all levels. Broader security awareness and associated skills are essential for technology leaders leading digital transformations.

Cybersecurity is a vast security domain and touches every security management aspect, such as identity management, authentication, authorization, and many more areas. Cybersecurity is a critical factor in digital transformation solutions.

Related to advanced security, Blockchain, which is a relatively new technology, is becoming critical for security, compliance, and enterprise-level governance requirements in large business organizations.

6 — Network and Data Communications

Knowledge and a good understanding of computer networks are essential for technology executives.

Digital transformation solutions touch every networking aspect, such as wide area, local area, wireless, and networking types. They proliferate as far as Cloud, IoT, and Big Data are concerned.

Since the network and associated communication technologies are the fundamental enablers of digital transformations, understanding functions of network and network implications such as security, latency, and bandwidth is also important topic that technology leaders need to cover broadly and in-depth based on their involvement.

7 — Mobility

Mobility is a critical technology stream in business organizations; hence the technology leaders need to understand and educate their teams on the effective use of mobility for innovations leading to business insights and collaboration across the organization, including the customers and partners.

The Enterprise Mobile Management (EMM) domain includes essential components such as device management, application management, content management, email management, and unified endpoint management.

Mobility is associated with several architectural and business considerations, such as network access, compliance, data management, workplace demographics, end-user accountability, and BYOD (Bring Your Own Devices) concepts.

8 — IT Service and System Management

IT service management covers an extensive array of Technology, processes, and tools. IT service management includes processes such as change management, problem management, incident management, service level management, capacity management, availability management, business continuity management, and security management.

In addition, system management processes such as monitoring, alerting, and event management can be covered under the umbrella term of IT Service Management. These processes are managed using many technological tools. More importantly, these tools must be architected, integrated, designed, and implemented coherently.

Understanding the dynamics of these tools within the context of digital transformation initiatives is vital for successful outcomes. One of the best representations of the IT Service model is implemented using the popular ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library.

9 — Technical Governance

Technical governance is an essential aspect of digital transformation initiatives. These transformations require a particular governance model due to their nature. For example, a dynamic and flexible governance model may be needed for digital transformation initiatives.

Technical leaders usually perform the role of technical governance head in sizeable digital transformation programs. They can have formal job roles and functions. For example, these leaders can run the architecture review boards or design authority forums established for complex digital transformation programs.

One of the common frameworks for technical governance in the industry is COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and related Technology). The use of the COBIT framework helps organizations gain optimal value from their IT investments by maintaining a balance between gaining benefits and optimizing risk levels and resource use.

10 — Architectural and Design Skills

Architecture and design are critical aspects of digital transformation initiatives. If architecture goes wrong, everything else goes wrong.

After architecture, the next most important factor is the design in the transformation lifecycle. Digital transformation requires both architectural and design skills.

Technology leaders must have strategic, architectural thinking, and design thinking skills. They need to articulate the current environment to the sponsoring executives, set future environment goals, and show how to bridge the gap between these two environments.

At a high level, these leaders understand the overall scope, requirements, and use cases of the solution. Technology leaders are expected to assess risks, issues, and dependencies in their day-to-day tasks.

Conclusion

If you are applying for technology executive roles, especially for digital transformation initiatives, these ten skills can help you gain a competitive advantage.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you the best in your career journey.

Reference: A Technical Excellence Framework for Innovative Digital Transformation Leadership

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