WHY MODERNIZE? YOUR STAFF IS ABOUT TO RETIRE.
One of the current major drivers in the market for IT services and staff
(and one that will continue for the next 5 or more years) is the looming
retirement of the approximately 77 million Baby Boomers. Kathy Blanck has coined this the
"Grey 2K" phenomenon. These people, born between 1946 and 1964, are just now becoming eligible
to retire. The generation behind the boomers, Gen-X, does not have enough
people to fill all the voids in the workforce caused by the boomer retirements.
Many labor articles on this subject project a shortfall of 30 million
as there are only 46 million Gen-Xers in the labor force. This shortfall
is expected to trigger a series of consolidations, the use of shared
or leveraged IT services and IT legacy system modernizations due to the
institutional knowledge walking out the door at retirement. According
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over the next decade, the greatest
demand for skilled workers will be in health care, education, accounting
and computer services.
This means if your systems were developed in the ‘70s
or 80’s, it will be tougher and tougher to find people with
the skills and desire to work on them. Waiting to modernize
will only cost you much more later.
In a March 2008 article published by Jay Vegso of the Computing Research
Association (CRA), the number of people seeking Computer Science degrees
has declined significantly. Read the
full article
March 12th, 2008, Bill Gates testified before the House on the need
to expand the H-1B Visa program in order to increase the available IT
talent pool. Read his testimony
SOME OF VIGNON’S RECENT ENGAGEMENTS
Large-State Department of Public Safety
The DPS had an aging, out-dated, legacy driver license issuance system
that was not integrated and very difficult to support and enhance. Vignon
was engaged on a 5-year project to successfully design and implement
a new, integrated, web-based system using web services and relational
database technology.
A Southern State
This southern state had legacy financial, human resource and payroll
applications that were not integrated, so they were difficult to support
and to enhance. Vignon implemented SAP ERP software to provide fully
integrated applications, improve reporting capabilities and streamline
maintenance and support functions.
Mid-Sized Water Utility Company
This company selected Vignon to plan the implementation of SAP to replace
its legacy maintenance and customer information and billing systems.
Vignon reviewed existing processes and systems and provided cost, timeline,
and resource estimates to implement the required functionality. The planning
phase of the project is now complete with the implementation planned
for November of 2009.
Small Electric COOP
This small electric cooperative has been a long-time customer of SAP.
After several years of using the system, the coop considered moving its
customer information and billing functions into SAP to compliment its
financial, plant maintenance, and human resource applications. Before
a CIS and billing implementation could get underway, they needed to upgrade
to the current version of SAP. Vignon was selected to assist them
with the upgrade in preparation for the pending CIS implementation. In
the interim, Vignon has also implemented SAP’s change request management
and service desk portions of Solution Manager.
