Women Can Bring Europe’s IT Sector to the Next Level

While most reports on women in IT concentrate on the need to meet the demand in quantity of IT professionals, less documented are the significant values that women can contribute to the quality and future success of the field – by bridging communications, enabling user-driven design, increasing innovation through diversity, and facilitating organisational change.

Representing over 5% of Europe’s GDP and contributing 50% to Europe’s total productivity growth, IT is a key contributor to European productivity and competitiveness, and is one of the economy’s most dynamic sectors. With a current shortage of 300,000 qualified IT staff, Europe’s capacity to recover after the current financial crisis will depend to a large extent on the strength and innovation capacity of the IT sector. Despite the fact that women have been making great strides in other fields such as law and medicine, only one sixth of IT professionals in Europe are women and the percentage of women graduating in computer science has continued to decrease in recent years. While most reports on women in IT concentrate on the need to meet the demand in quantity of IT professionals, less documented are the significant values that women can contribute to the quality and future success of the field – by bridging communications, enabling user-driven design, increasing innovation through diversity, and facilitating organisational change. Therefore, it is vital that the full potential of the available workforce be explored to include more women in the IT industry.

Women combine communication and technical skills

Although IT has done well as a predominantly male field in the past, the development of the global economy means that high tech jobs previously reserved for Americans or Europeans are now going to countries such as India and China. This means that the IT sector in Western countries must evolve and redefine its core competencies in order to succeed in the global economy. The trend is towards IT being a partner to business and no longer purely subservient to it. Including IT in the decision-making processes affecting important organisational changes, instead of only engaging it in the implementation of projects, allows businesses to fully tap the potential of their IT departments to accomplish business goals. But we are not there yet. IT, as a whole, must learn to effectively communicate their contribution to business successes, and thereby, change the perception of IT from a cost centre to one of strategic value. In other words, IT needs people who are able to combine the ability to articulate the benefits of certain technologies with strong technical skills. With their intrinsic communication skills and fresh perspective, women are well-suited for participation and leadership in this changing world of IT.

Women facilitate user-driven design

Another value that women bring to IT is in facilitating user-driven design. Although women influence more than 80% of consumer spending decisions, 90% of technology products and services are designed by men. Including women in the technology design process can bring new markets and open up new lines of business. A diverse workforce creates more opportunities to understand and satisfy the needs of a diverse community of customers. Together with an open, flexible and participatory work environment, integrating women in the design process takes advantage of a diverse workforce to connect with customers and enable innovation.

Women ensure innovation

According to Scott Page, professor of complex systems, political science and economics at the University of Michigan, diversity produces organisational strength, leads to higher productivity, and is strongly linked to innovation. Using mathematical models, he was able to link diversity to productivity and innovation. Furthermore, research by McKinsey, an international management consultancy firm, has shown that diversity makes for better decision-making at all organisational levels, with companies with women in top management performing better operationally and financially compared to other companies in similar sectors. Diversity is especially important for problem solving and innovation, which are both extremely relevant for IT. Diverse teams find more innovative solutions, get stuck less often, and are able to find a solution faster because they have different perspectives within the team. In fact, diverse teams even outperform teams of experts, as experts are often trained to think in the same way. Some of the innovation policies at companies like Toyota and Google recognise the link between diversity and innovation, showing an understanding that differences in the composition of their work forces boost their bottom lines.

Women bring about organisational change

As an underrepresented group in an industry that is declining in numbers in Western countries, women are in an excellent position to help bring Europe’s IT to the next level. In order for Europe’s IT sector to remain competitive, both the image of IT and the reality of IT culture need to change in order to attract more women – and men – to the industry. First, the image of IT as a geeky, male-only, boring profession involving long hours isolated at a computer is out-dated. To succeed in IT, a different set of characteristics is needed. These days, IT is more about communication and collaboration, boosted by qualities such as being innovative, risk-taking, and entrepreneurial. Unfortunately, these “soft skills” – which are also women’s strengths – are often undervalued in IT, which is still largely experienced as a male-dominated, anti-social, and individualistic culture by women in the field. Secondly, Europe’s high tech companies must reject a hero-culture, where individuals are rewarded at the expense of teamwork, and instead foster a culture of collaboration, respect, and openness that takes advantage of diversity to enable innovation. Women can help bring about organisational change to make IT a more attractive career option for both men and women.

Women as change-agents of the industry

The current financial crisis acts as wakeup call to Europe’s IT sector to find new ways to remain competitive in the global economy. Reaching out to women is crucial to the IT sector’s ability to attract and retain the human capital it needs to succeed. Companies are now looking for technical people with more diverse experience and a broader set of skills including leadership, interpersonal and business skills. This gives women a great opportunity to participate and contribute to the success of the IT sector. Women, a minority in IT, are in a better position to affect changes needed by the IT sector to stay competitive, than men who have benefited from the old system. In conclusion, companies and governments that are able to develop and harness the female pool of talent will be more successful in a global economy in the years to come.

Clara Ko
January 2009
Member of EuropeanPWN – Amsterdam

About Clara Ko

Clara Ko is a software architect, agile consultant, and co-founder of Duchess – a global community of female Java developers. She is passionate about bridging the business and technical worlds and is constantly striving for excellence in her work. For this reason, she has spoken on her experiences with IT as a creative and inspiring profession, as well as the great opportunities in the changing face of IT, in order to attract more talent into the IT workforce. She believes that women can contribute to making IT successful by bringing a personal touch and a fresh perspective.