Check out the interviews of the deputy head of cabinet of European Commission V.P. Neelie Kroes, Constantijn Van Oranje Nassau, and Ferrovial’s Chief Information Officer & Advisory Board member of CIONET Spain, Federico Flórez, who both spoke with INSEAD Knowledge during the e-skills conference in Fontainebleau on February 5th.
Van Oranje-Nassau believes that in Europe specifically, there is a danger of creating a “lost generation” because of a mismatch between the jobs posted and the technology skills young people are being taught. Bringing industry, educators and industry together is a necessity because otherwise “you continue to trail the real developments” with school and university curricula that are outdated. “CIOs are looking for combinations of ICT with strategy or with security and not pure systems engineers that we’re producing at the moment.”
Flórez explains that many non-core business processes at Ferrovial have been outsourced as he sees this as a key advantage for the company’s operational flexibility. With outsourcing, companies can focus on growth; but the more global a company becomes, the more it needs information technology, as well as specialist IT employees. And that means specialist training – the domain of policy-makers.