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Parity reveals a significant lack of business skills among IT managers


WEBWIRE

Research from Parity training has revealed startling disconnects between IT and the wider business world which has asked them to raise the question ‘What exactly is an IT Professional?’

Rick Firth, Managing Director of Parity Training said, “It has always been assumed that IT Managers should possess relevant technical skills, but we are now asking whether these are always necessary if other more valuable business skills are compromised. We believe that senior IT Professionals must be business people first and have the commercial and management skills to manage teams of people, financial budgets and projects"

The Parity research into what makes a winning project team and the future of ITIL in the boardroom highlights important weaknesses in the necessary skills required to run a business. Both sets of research demonstrate commitment to functional skills i.e. ensuring projects meet business objectives over time and budget, and delivering internal customer satisfaction regardless of the financial impacts.

But, said Firth, “The average hard nosed CFO is not going to be impressed with achieving objectives at huge, out of budget costs, or indeed have delivery of great internal customer service with no regard to the financial implications"

Organisations have habitually invested in developing technical skills but have often failed to give additional ‘professional’ skills the same priority. To help organisations do this Parity are making huge changes to the way they sell their IT training services. In addition to launching added value services such as Learning Plus and Parity e-books they intend to completely overhaul their learning portfolio to include IT Governance, Management and Professional skills.

Firth describes what this will mean for the IT Management Profession, “We are going to focus on upgrading Management skills. Our research during the year has consistently told us that we need to address these skills shortages. This means we will be focusing our delivery strategy at the IT business improvement level. It is a significant change and learning delivery end solutions need to change to meet this challenge. Parity intends to be at the forefront of responding to this”.

Parity Group are leaders in IT Service Management and Programme and Project Management training and consulting and were one of the original founders of PRINCE (Projects in Controlled Environments).

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Editorial notes:

About Parity Group plc

Parity is a leading IT Business services organisation delivering technical, recruitment and training solutions to the UK and Irish markets.

They focus on the key areas of project, programme and IT service management. Parity’s Training business educates client’s own staff in these skill areas; their Resources business recruits highly skilled short term, interim and permanent staff; and their Solutions business takes total delivery responsibility for IT projects and programmes as well as the ongoing delivery of IT applications and business processes.

Parity’s 30 years’ expertise in Project and Programme Management minimises business risk associated with systems implementation, integration or business change for clients. Listed on the London Stock Exchange, Parity recorded a turnover of over £150m in 2006.

Parity has deep industry knowledge and expertise in Finance, Utilities, Telecoms and the Public Sector delivering people, skills and concepts for IT projects and programmes throughout the UK. Parity have provided these services to a range of notable clients, including Hewlett Packard, IBM, Ministry of Defence, Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Ireland Electricity, Siemens and GlaxoSmithKline.

Parity PR contact details:
Gina Cannon
Parity Group plc
Wimbledon Bridge House
1 Hartfield Road
Wimbledon
London
SW19 3RU
0845 873 6945
www.parity.net/


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 Parity Training
 Parity
 ITIL
 IT training
 Project Management


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