FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Despite the recent economic downturn that has resulted in lay-offs and temporary hiring freezes, the long-term demand for information technology (IT) workers is still high. Recruiting and retaining qualified IT workers remains the number one issue facing IT organizations, according to the board of advisors for the Information Technology Research Center (ITRC) at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.

"For the past few years, IT organizations have faced a shortage of qualified IT workers," said Bill Hardgrave, executive director of the ITRC. "This shortage has created challenges in recruiting new employees as well as retaining current employees. Because of previous market conditions, employees often found it financially beneficial to move to another company. Retaining top talent remains an issue for our member organizations."

The ITRC is an interdisciplinary research unit of the Walton College. The ITRC board of advisors, which comprises 14 technology executives primarily from Arkansas private businesses and public organizations, provides long-term strategic direction and ideas and, in some instances, funding for IT research.

At a recent meeting, the board members ranked the top ten issues facing their organizations, according to Hardgrave. They identified systems integration, which is the effort to make disparate software systems work together as the next hot issue in IT. Recently, the systems integration effort has taken a broader perspective to include the organization’s entire supply chain.

Beyond recruitment and retention, the board identified training and development of IT workers as the third critical issue. The work environment of the IT worker is rapidly changing. New technical architectures, shifts in operating paradigms, and emerging development approaches make it mandatory that IT workers receive up-to-date training while maintaining productivity.

"Although technical training is important and expected, it is interesting to note the board felt that developing IT professionals’ soft skills, such as communications skills, is critical to the long-term success of an IT organization," Hardgrave said.

Other issues identified by the Board include enhancing project management; improving and maintaining the IT organization as an enabler to the business; increasing security; prioritizing budget items and proving project worth; creating portals or web 'supersites’ to support the business; and developing web-enabled applications.

"Businesses use information technology to improve performance and cut costs in their operations. This is the basic principle behind business process reengineering," said Hardgrave. "Beyond reengineering, IT enables an organization to completely design new processes, rather than simply automate existing processes. New ways of doing business, never before possible, now can be created with today’s IT."

Board members include: Wally Anderson, Acxiom Corporation; John Haley, ALLTEL Corporation; Joseph Smith, Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield; Phil Porter, Arvest Bank Group; Lisa Spears, Beverly Enterprises; Don Hall, Data-Tronics Corp.; Bill Holder, Dillard’s Inc.; Kay Palmer; J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc.; Lee Buddress, Jump Technologies; Ray Shepherd, RHI Consulting; Dee Hency, Southwestern Energy; Don Melton, Arkansas Department of Information Systems; Gary Cooper, Tyson Foods Inc.; and Dan Phillips, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. In addition, members from the Walton College include Fred Davis, chair of the Information Systems department; Doyle Z. Williams, dean; and Anne O’Leary-Kelly, associate professor of management.

The ITRC was established in the Walton College in 1999 with a portion of the endowment created by the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation gift of $50 million in 1998. The ITRC conducts IT research for and with organizations, collects and analyzes data, provides on-site research reviews, hosts research workshops and provides research facilities.