The State of the IT Training Industry

Tim Herbert, Vice President, Research, CompTIA and Cushing Anderson, Program Vice President, Project-Based Services, IDC shared their thoughts on current and future prospects for the IT training industry during their State of the Industry Address at CompTIA Colloquium 2010 on Thursday, April 8 in Chicago.

Herbert kicked off the address with a brief presentation on the challenges faced by IT decision makers from a variety of verticals. “Productivity decisions intensify during difficult economic times,” said Herbert. “The volume of data available to IT professionals is growing exponentially but the challenge is making it useful and accessible.” Herbert cited challenges in keeping up with the changing landscape of back end infrastructure, mobility, green IT, social media and finding the right people with the right skills and experience among the primary issues facing IT professionals today.

Anderson’s presentation focused on the latter point – finding the right people with the right skills and experience. “Training and certification matter to team performance” Anderson said. “A high performing team spends more time on improving and less time on fixing.”

Anderson contended that the type and method of training – not just the amount of training and number of trainees – is a significant factor when firms calculate the ROI of training programs. “40% of firms feel that classroom based training is their preferred method of learning,” Anderson said.  57% of training dollars are spent on classroom training, which is four times more expensive than asynchronous training for IT according to Anderson.