SFIAplus - Skills for the Information Age!

The growing reality is that IT doesnt just support business, it powers it. Successful businesses will be those who can give themselves a competitive advantage through the effective exploitation of IT.

- David Clarke, Chief Executive, BCS

Despite the current economic downturn, there is still an IT skills shortage in certain areas.

Investing in skills now will put organisations in the strongest position possible as the economy recovers, enabling them to gain an advantage in a very competitive market.

ProActive Services recently introduced our Education Programme and the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).

SFIA is a comprehensive IT skills framework, developed by the UK Government backed forum that includes the highly respected British Computer Society (BCS). It describes the typical roles in IT and the skills needed to perform them. SFIAplus provides a solid foundation for organisations when setting standards of professionalism in IT.

ProActive's Education Programmes service was developed to help customers gain an insight into the gap between the skills they have, compared to the skills required for the organisation to be successful. As a result, ProActive's Education Programme uses SFIAplus to benchmark and identify the gaps in an organisations current skill levels, which leads into the development of a Training Roadmap and career development plan.

Just some of the benefits that can be realised from implementing the SFIAplus framework include:

• increased business returns from IT investment
• leads to full exploitation of information assets
• provides a competitive advantage
• offers career development for IT professionals
• attracts and retain high-quality people.

In addition to its use within the Education Programmes service, ProActive is planning to licence SFIAplus in its own right and provide value-add supporting services.

Roy Shepherd, Business Consultant from the BCS recently visited Australia to deliver some short presentations on SFIAplus, outlining the benefits of using the framework to deliver a more professional and developed IT function. The sessions also demonstrated how SFIAplus is currently being used by ProActive to help customers effectively plan for, and implement, professional development across the IT organisation.

If you'd like to find out more about how SFIAplus can help your organisation, please contact us on 1300 880 885.