MARKET

TRENDS
REPORT
Q2 2011
TECHNOLOGY
AUSTRALIA
02 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q2 2011
 03 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q2 2011

Introduction

The first quarter of 2011 closed for many Australian Technology

businesses with a solid, if not superb start to the year. The
economy continues to build with positive momentum
evidenced by a number of positive economic drivers;

• The inflation rate in Australia was reported at 3.3% in the first

quarter of 2011, up from 2.7% in the December 2010 Quarter
but still down compared with an historical average from 1937
to 2010 of 6.02%.

• The unemployment rate reached 4.9% in March 2011

compared with its historical average from 1978 to 2010 of
7.11% and reflecting a marginal decrease over the December
2010 quarter.

• At its meeting on April 5, the Board of the Reserve Bank

of Australia decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at
4.75 per cent.

On the flip side the first quarter of 2011 has seen a number
of challenging events occur both locally and on a global
scale. Despite the global markets starting to recover, the
recent natural disaster in Japan will have a noticeable effect
on Japanese production in the short term and this may have
minor effects on other Asian markets. Closer to home both the
New Zealand earthquakes and the Queensland floods have had
dramatic effects on many individuals, and as always with natural
disasters the flow on of increased costs associated with the
clean-up and recovery will continue for some time.

Most leading commentary suggests continued growth in

employment throughout this year albeit less than that achieved
in 2010. So in summary, we appear to be in a reasonably
positive environment, showcasing moderate growth and
economic stability. Ask any European stepping of the plane in
Australia to compare the two continents and I suggest you’ll
find them very glad to be here in the Southern Hemisphere.

Kind Regards

Andy Cross
Managing Director, Technology
04 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q2 2011

Recruitment Issues

 ow to truly partner with your recruitment agency -

H
why are the services of recruitment agencies such a bitter pill for many to swallow?

Overhyped or underutilised – the social media recruitment dilemma.

 hat’s a working week in 2011 –

W
the age of ‘workplace flexibility’ verses the ‘always on’ culture.

Recruitment Agency Partnership

For many years it’s been my personal soap box to argue for the regulation and therein by
extension, the professionalism of the Recruitment Industry here in Australia. You see with
no effective barriers to entry and no formal academic or skill requirements, anyone can
enter the recruitment profession and unfortunately, often they do!

Now a quick recap on why this is a problem. Any unregulated Industry or profession
will define itself not on the basis of Industry agreed best practice or recognised code of
professional standards, rather by the lowest common denominator. Safe to say therefore,
that many will attest that the current quality of service standards is set unacceptably low.

As someone with a post-graduate education, and over a decade of Industry experience

helping businesses attract and engage talent, this notion of recruitment being a sub-
standard service offering quite frankly offends.

For many years corporates have espoused the virtue of “people are our most important
asset” and rightly so I would add. So if people are a business’ most important asset and a
recruitment agency can assist you in finding said assets, why is the agency not seen as a
more important business partner?

The answer I’d suggest lies not so much with the recruitment service per se but rather the
manner in which that service is provided; namely inconsistency in pricing, service quality,
speed , commitment and consistency. But if recruiters know this, the professional ones at
least, why does the problem persist?

Again I’d point to the unsophisticated relationship frameworks within which most
recruitment agencies are made to compete, resulting in a foot race to be first at the table.

No win – no fee.
 05 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q2 2011

2011 has seen a number of challenging events

occur both locally and on a global scale. Despite the
global markets starting to recover, the recent natural
disaster in Japan will have a noticeable effect on
Japanese production in the short term and this may
have minor effects on other Asian markets.

The result of that race to get paid therefore means that the quality standards of even
the best intentioned are likely to slip in an attempt to remain commercially viable.

So how can you ensure you gain professional service from your recruitment agencies?

1. T
 rust
Recognise the skills of those employed in your recruitment agency as the specialist and
professional skills they are, and put your faith in their ability to deliver.
If you desire a professional service you must engage professionals and then create
a relationship that’s built on mutual expectations of professional care and attention.

2. R
 espect
The importance of respect in any relationship cannot be understated but in a business
context it’s even more paramount. Think about the way you want your recruitment
agency to portray your organisation in the market place, your role, you as a potential boss
and act in a reciprocal manner. Respect begets respect and disrespect of course, the same.

3. I ntegrity
In a people centric Industry such as recruitment the need for honesty and integrity is
never more important. To make a decision to hire an individual requires a leap of faith that
the person is going to be a positive asset your business and not a cost or burden. Allowing
you to make an informed decision requires informed advice and guidance which must be
based on honest assessments and opinion.

4. P
 artnership
The previous three points all form part of an often used buzz word in corporate Australia,
partnership. In essence what we’re talking about is a relationship build on respect that
embodies respect and integrity in the delivery of its services and most importantly,
provides a benefit to both parties.
06 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q2 2011

Social Media Recruitment

The corporate world has been abuzz with talk of the social media boom for some time now
and any online search will bring back pages of advice on what to do to embrace the power
of your networks. The reality is that social media as a concept is not new, but the online
delivery method is not only new but more importantly operates in a constant state of
development and refresh. Web 2.0 allows us to identify on a daily basis, new ways in which
to engage with mass audiences, targeted audiences and everyone in-between.

So how do you create a useful social media recruitment strategy?

Well first and foremost you need to start with the premise that this should be just one of
several strategies you employ to meet your recruitment needs, then you can check the
following useful steps to start the planning.

1. Why Social Recruiting?

Sounds an obvious question but don’t get caught rolling on the bandwagon simply
because everyone else is doing it. It will be very difficult to design and utilise effective
tools if you don’t first know what you actually want or need to create? Is your aim to
reduce recruitment costs, hire better quality employees or promote a more creative
corporate brand identity?

2. Resource allocation.
Once you know you want to design a plan then you need to give it the resources it
needs to be successful. The most obvious sources of social media networking should
be pretty easy to tap in to but a little creative research among the more connected
members of your business might unearth the next big thing. For anyone really serious
about a strategy it might be worth engaging with an external professional in this field.

3. Defining your strategies.

Now you know what you want to achieve and you’ve tagged your resources to make
it happen, but who and where are your candidates? This is just the first question that
needs addressing followed by what tools will you utilise and how will you measure your
metrics and return on investment?

4. Social Media is a multi-channel dialogue.

Many conversations can take place at the same time, with or without you and therefore
it’s important that you have a mechanism in place for capturing responses and feedback
and then providing attention and action as appropriate.

5. Reflect, review, refresh.

Once you start to achieve data you need to plug it back in to the model to try and refine
your strategies and hopefully build upon your initial goals and objectives. Remember
that the process is both ongoing and organic; requiring a more fluid approach to
development as and when the market, your business needs or the tools available change.
 07 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q2 2011

Working in the year 2011

Whenever the topic of workplace flexibility comes around, Human Resources Managers will
no doubt roll off the latest best practice Industry perks that they offer to their employees
to keep them motivated yet engaged and productive.

The reality of work life balance in the year 2011 however is far from all positive and much
can be said for the pervasive nature of technology that allows us to be plugged in and
switched on 24 hours a day, seven days a week!

In 2008, before the recession’s worst effects were felt, Utah (USA) managers started an
experiment: if state workers crammed 40 hours of work into four days and nonemergency
services were closed on Fridays, might the same amount of work get done for less money
and a reduced impact on the environment? The debate has remained over the past few
years but the 4/10 system as it’s become known, remains today and is causing discussion
now among other states.

Support for this model comes from some fascinating 2000 research by Erik Rauch who
identified that in the US productivity has been increasing exponentially for more than a
century. An average worker needs to work a mere 11 hours per week to produce as much
as one working 40 hours per week in 1950. Whilst the data relates to the US market there
have been similar findings when productivity increases have been measured in both Europe
and Japan. The conclusion is clear: if productivity means anything at all, a worker should be
able to earn the same standard of living as a 1950 worker in only 11 hours per week.

Closer to home in Australia we’re certainly no slackers when it comes to the working week.
Almost one quarter of full-time employees work 50 hours or more every week, and the
average working week for Australian men is almost 46 hours per week, compared to 43
hours in most other industrialised nations. Perhaps as a reflection of our times and the more
frequent casual and part-time work which woman undertake, the data is less clear when
studying their average working hours.

So with all this rhetoric around the longer working week many of us face and its inevitable
negative impact, where will the future take us? Certainly with a generation shift in those
entering the workforce we need to be mindful that expectations are likely to change.
Couple this with the ability to do more work remotely, and armed with the knowledge that
we’re still many times more productive than our parents, surely we should all be knocking
off just a little earlier on Friday afternoon!
08 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q2 2011

Technology Industry News

Google under the spotlight, again!

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reported to be pursuing an investigation of

Google Inc’s dominance of the Internet search industry. It may appear that the FTC is just
now realising what we’ve all known for a long time, Google is everywhere!

Elsewhere Google is also facing increasing scrutiny from regulators as it looks to build
its internet dominance. The European Commission has begun probes into its business
practices whilst elsewhere they face antitrust complaints in South Korea due to the
increasing dominance of its Android software for mobile phones.

According to comScore, Google ranked first in the U.S. explicit core search market in
February, the most recent month in which the firm supplied data. During February, Google
searches originating on Google sites made up of 65.4% of all searches, or just over 10 billion
out of 15.4 billion total searches. Yahoo ranked second, at 16.1%, and Microsoft, which now
powers Yahoo searches, ranked third at 13.6%.

Are you paying too much for an ageing broadband supply?

According to the OECD statistics regarding average broadband subscription prices,

Australia is:

3rd most expensive for very low-speed connections (out of 24 countries)

14th most expensive for high-speed connections (out of 33 countries); and
12th most expensive for very high-speed connections (out of 28 countries)

Senator Conroy said the recent passage through both Houses of Parliament of the National
Broadband Network Companies Bills 2010 and the Telecommunications Legislation
Amendments (National Broadband Network Measures-Access Arrangements Bill 2011) will
further assist in reducing broadband prices for all Australians.

At the same time the Senator recognised an announcement by NBN Co that construction
would shortly begin on the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Stage two communities
in Tasmania.

For the rest of us, we slave on and hope for the best or at least a more affordable and
speedy service in the future.
 09 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q2 2011

Security exploitation occurs through social media.

As the world craves news from high profile global events the social media networks work
overtime to disseminate fact, fiction and everything in-between. Whether it’s the Royal
Wedding or news of Bin Laden’s death, social networks are being targeted as a readily
accessible vehicle for malware and spam say software security companies

Behind the success of how quickly such links and viruses can be disseminated is “the
implied trust of social network contacts" and the "prevalence of shortened URLs,” say
security experts. "The point is how malware reacts quickly to use major events for its
distribution, registering domains and using social networks in the first hours," said says
Kaspersky Lab expert Vicente Diaz.

The consistent message is to ensure you have adequate protection in place and if in doubt,
don’t click on that link of photos that you know are just not going to be legitimate.

Clean Technology growth continues.

According to Clean Energy Trends 2011, a new report by Clean Edge, the growth of clean
technology over the last decade rivals that of the internet and computers, and there are
few signs to suggest the growth won’t continue unabated. The report identified biofuels,
wind power, and solar photovoltaics combined to create a $188.1 billion industry in 2010
with projections that this number will rise to close to $400 billion over the next ten years.

Clean Energy Trends 2011 takes an in-depth look at five key trends that Clean Edge believes
will shape clean-energy markets over the next decade: the phase-out of incandescent
lights, advances in natural gas, cleaner aviation fuels, low-cost green building, and viable
alternatives to high-demand rare-earth metals.

With global initiatives such as Earth Hour strongly entrenched in but a few short years,
hopefully the drive to a cleaner powered future is closer than we think.
010 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q2 2011

Industry Sectors

Applications

The application development market is certainly an interesting space at the moment with
a divergence of focus between the large environment, product upgrade projects and the
more cutting edge mobile platform development initiatives.

The banking and financial services sector has for some time required a constant supply
of Java and Microsoft technologies to assist with large corporate programs. There is now
however a real and growing demand not only from this sector but from across the board
for developers to build applications from scratch for the many different types of mobile
medium which organisations are using to connect to their customer base. Notebooks,
Tablets and multiple mobile phone platforms are creating a growing variety of projects for
developers to work on.

As in Q1 we talked about Microsoft Azure pointing a path towards .Net migration to

the cloud, this quarter we hear of the approval for the next release of the Java Platform,
Enterprise Edition (Java EE) 7. The major thrust of this release would be for cloud
enablement, which is really good news as Java EE tends to be the major application
development platform for the enterprises in their datacentres.

Demand and supply are reasonably balanced nationally across most of the more well-known
development languages, although as remains a trend across our Industry the quality of
supply varies incredibly and employers remain choosy. Rates are increasing albeit moderately
(less than 10% year on year) for in-demand, contract developer skills whilst permanent
development roles and rates remain constant. As always, low supply or highly skilled
individuals will be able to command up to 25% premium over typical market trend rates.

Outside of the mainstream development languages interest remains high for open-source
application framework Ruby on Rails, created by 37Signals with a number of projects
requiring resources and demand outstripping supply quite significantly.

Business Information

There’s been a strong trend of competition across this space during the quarter with demand
for Business Analysts, testers and Projects Managers all increasing significantly. 2011 appears
to herald the return of the counter offer with multiple examples in the last few months of
candidates being offered pay rises and promotions on the day of their resignation! Salary
increases of $20,000 to $40,000 are not out of the norm which suggests either desperation
to hang on to resources or that salary levels have not rebounded appropriately from pre-GFC.
The challenge of course becomes how to appropriately manage these resources when the
true motivations and loyalties may not be as clear you would like to think.
 011 Ambition – Technology – Australia Q2 2011

Supporting the above assertions, Michael Young provides an insight for web site Project
Manager entitled ‘Not enough project managers’.

In the past few months there has been significant increase in demand for testers,
particularly those with automation tools and experience. Whilst QTP may have been
most prevalent in recent times, a change in demand towards experience with Selenium,
Cucumber and Loadrunner has been noted. If you have Automation and Performance
testing experience, the market is certainly gaining strong momentum for you.

Finally, there are a significant number of organisations currently undertaking corporate

re-structure programs in conjunction with ongoing technology investment. This is
leading to pressure to deliver to tight deadlines whilst under the uncertainty of the
future internal landscape.

Infrastructure

With the strength of the Australian dollar improving buying power, hardware and software
upgrade activity has been increasing this quarter. Grant Montgomery, managing director of
EL Consult commented that; “Most software and hardware is priced in US dollars. The price
of that software and hardware are therefore close to 20% cheaper in Australian terms than
just 12 months ago”.

This has increased the demand for desktop and network roll-out engineers with a continued
steady demand for reliable staff resources.

Cloud activity continues to gain traction through email/exchange offerings although

organisations are still holding off sending everything to the cloud at this point due to
perceptions of security and ownership risk. Expect this to change over time as confidence
in the technology grows on the back of successful business case studies and best practice.
Virtualisation is still on the increase with strong demand for VMware skilled candidates.
We are seeing pockets of Citrix XenDesktop appear in corporate environments which are
increasing the need for virtualised application packagers (also in light supply).

Away from the cloud and back on the ground there is a prevailing preference for
certification such as ITIL. Organisations are looking to recruit professionals who have
experience in SLA driven environments that adhere to principals of Incident and
Problem Management.

Salaries and contractor rates remain in a low growth rate band at present (less than 15%
year on year) but there are general signs of counter offers and pay increase which we
expect to more strongly affect this sector in coming months.
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