3 challenges for today's tech leaders — and how to overcome them.

Tech is no longer just a department — it's become encoded in the DNA of the modern enterprise as a whole. As a result, it’s not just your CTO or CIO that faces an ever-evolving set of IT challenges. It’s also your CMO, your QA manager and so on.

So, how do you equip leadership across your org chart to overcome these obstacles?

The first step is understanding that infrastructure and engineering are rarely the main barriers to success. Instead, it’s the people and processes that will make or break your IT systems and services.

Let’s look at three IT challenges keeping leaders awake at night, plus some strategies to help you rest easy.

attracting the right people at the right time

Tech project needs don’t stay static. This means you need the right people, in the right roles, at the right time. Despite recent mass layoffs at high-profile tech companies like Twitter and Meta, the reality is that engineering talent continues to be scarce. Here’s what you can do:

stay agile: anticipate evolving skill needs and project demands

Your projects are only as good as the teams you assemble to tackle them. But project needs evolve, meaning the skill sets your team requires are in constant flux. Stop scrambling to find the right people when the pressure is high. Build your talent pipeline early — one that aligns with your future needs while keeping an eye on emerging trends.

scale your team — without creating drag

You need to grow your team. But while expanding by hiring 10 engineers may seem logical, supervising the additional personnel could unnecessarily strain your management capacity. The solution? Avoid creating organizational drag. Stay focused and maintain efficiency as you scale by building teams where select people manage other team members.

team up with an experienced partner for a range of flexible solutions

Hiring the right talent for your teams is essential, but it’s not always easy to know what you’re getting before you get it. Partnering with a provider like Randstad gives you optimal flexibility to “try before you buy” — for example, by assigning a DevOps engineer a small-scale project to assess their ability to automate and streamline operations.

navigating the ever-changing tech talent landscape

It’s beyond cliche, but we’ll say it anyway: The tech world moves lightning-fast. With bleeding-edge technologies like the metaverse and AI emerging seemingly out of nowhere, it can be tempting to get caught up in the hype — and lose sight of your objectives. Not to mention the pressure from investors to move quickly. Cope with the latest tech trends by striking the right balance between innovation and strategy:

be poised to pivot quickly

With change being the only constant, agility is critical in digital transformation. Building massive, permanent teams can be risky. Focus on building agile teams that can adapt quickly and efficiently to new trends and challenges ahead of the competition.

assess a trend’s staying power

Some tech trends are more like a fleeting fad (even Meta is drawing back from the metaverse, for example), but others have broad applications that will shape your industry for years. Take the cloud: In today’s tech world, a strong cloud team is non-negotiable when you want to build toward the future. Identifying innovations with similar staying power will keep you ahead of the game.

avoid committing too early or too strongly

Giving in to the pressure to rush in can be costly, whether it’s resources or missed opportunities. Successful tech projects require not only careful planning and execution—there’s a need for agility and adaptability too. Partnering with Randstad gives you the supporting infrastructure to flex as needed.

ensuring success by driving buy-in from within

New tech has the power to revolutionize the way the teams within your organization work. But here’s the catch: new always requires some form of organizational change — and change is usually followed closely by resistance to change. So bringing in new tech isn’t just about implementing the latest tools or platforms. You need internal buy-in so everyone’s on board and empowered to use them.

cultivate internal champions

When it comes down to it, the success of a tech initiative depends on your people using it. Which means you need to sell your initiative to internal stakeholders. By clearly communicating the benefits of your tech programs, you’ll build your base of internal clients and drive adoption across the board.

facilitate optimal pipeline integration

Implementing tech initiatives is never a one-and-done process. Teams and departments are constantly in flux, so your tech needs to be agile enough to continue providing consistent support. One example? The ability to scale down as well as up, so innovation isn’t continuously increasing in costs.

prioritize proper change management

Even the most tried-and-true tech initiatives can fail if they remain unused by internal clients. Consider, for example, Gartner’s estimate that 55 to 75 percent of ERP projects fail to meet their objectives. This is why effective change management is crucial: You need to provide your internal clients with the skills and knowledge to properly leverage your tech investments.

Technological innovations continue to blaze their way through the business world — making it even more critical for tech leaders to find the right people, stay agile and manage tech change effectively. Randstad provides flexible talent pipelines to drive cost savings, efficiency, integrated technology, satisfied end-users and maturity across people, processes and technology. With our support, your organization will be ready for everything the tech future holds.