Via Vivant

Any CIO can tell you how hard it is to find IT help these days. Web, networking, and ERP skills are in high demand and short supply. Constant turnover is the rule, as techies go where the coolest technology or most lucrative stock options are. Nearly 350,000 IT positions remained unfilled in 1998, according to the Information Technology Association of America, and more recent estimates put the number even higher.

All this is why companies rely heavily on contractors to fill their IT labor gaps, and why this dependence won't change anytime soon. Consulting firm Meta Group Inc. predicts that by 2005, as much as 40 percent of the IT workforce will consist of outsourced labor.

By then, however, companies should have an easier time finding and managing IT contractors, thanks to outfits like Vivant Corp. (www.viva nt.com). Last fall, Oakland, Calif.-based Vivant launched what it says is the first Web marketplace designed to help companies source and manage their contract workforces. Vivant.com recently counted between 30 and 40 staffing firms and job boards on its open network of suppliers, as well as individual contractors.

"Most of [our suppliers] are nationwide," says CEO Cindy Padnos. "We have access to hundreds of thousands of contractor résumés."

The large companies currently using Vivant generally bring the staffing firms they do business with onto the Web site, enabling them to replace their relatively labor-intensive process of dispatching job orders with an electronic one. Companies source contractors on the site for free, while suppliers pay Vivant a transaction fee based on the value of the engagement.

Detailed Data
Contract workers constitute an expensive, poorly managed asset, charges Padnos; companies frequently lack a handle on just how many contractors they have, what those contractors are doing, and how much they're being paid. To better control that asset, Vivant offers Vivant Contractor Management, a software tool accessed via the Web site. For a small subscription fee, companies use the software to maintain detailed data on contractors, and to generate summary reports on contractor activity and supplier performance.

At Vivant customer Deutsche Financial Services Corp., in St. Louis, about a dozen hiring managers use the software to track some 70 IT contractors, says Stephen Parker, assistant vice president for human resources. "We can see who's been here, from which companies, what the rates were," says Parker. "We can do any kind of analysis." He adds that he couldn't find a packaged app with the same functionality.

The times are indeed a- changin' in IT workforces, confirms Parker. "You can provide the best work environment, the best security, the highest pay--and people will still leave you."

IT Salaries

Adjust Your Budgets

In 2000, starting salaries in information technology will increase an average of 6.8 percent over 1999, predicts RHI Consulting, an IT recruiter in Menlo Park, Calif. (www.rhic.c om). That's slightly down from last year's forecast of 7.3 percent. Consulting and systems integration will lead the way, with starting salaries rising in some specialties by more than 17 percent.

RHI, which bases its 2000 RHI Consulting Salary Guide on the thousands of job orders managed by its U.S. offices, also sees a rosy year for Lotus Notes developers (14.9 percent over 1999) and E- commerce specialists (14.8 percent). The average starting salary increase for Internet-related positions: 7.2 percent. m

In Demand
The eight hottest specialty areas in IT: %

SOURCE: RHI CONSULTING SURVEY OF >1,400 CIOs

• 1
• 2
• next »