Business

What Holds People Back in Their Tech Careers That They Are Not Thinking About

Published

3 years ago

October 5, 2023

If you want to advance in your technology career, it makes sense to grow your technology skills. Achieving a new certification, attending a bootcamp, or earning an advanced degree are all steps that tech professionals take as they seek to move ahead in their careers. However, focusing on tech skills alone will not be enough for many tech professions.

“I have a warning to cloud engineers, software engineers, network engineers, and all hands-on technology professionals,” says Michael Gibbs, CEO of Go Cloud Careers. “If you limit your learning to tech skills, you will have a more difficult time succeeding in today’s modern world. Even worse, you run the risk of being replaced or outsourced within the next five years.”

Michael has over two decades of experience training students for high-paying positions in the field of networking and cloud computing. The unique programs offered through Go Cloud Careers provide students with unparalleled technical competency as well as proficiency in the soft skills needed to succeed as elite technology professionals. Go Cloud’s training gives its students an exceptionally high success rate at securing six-figure jobs.

“The good news is that there are things that any tech professional can do to increase their income, get promoted, and thrive in their career,” Michael says. “The key is focusing on the skills that will never become obsolete.”

Developments that are transforming the tech world

To thrive in today’s tech space, tech workers need to pay close attention to three ongoing developments, each of which is contributing to a major shift in tech opportunities. The first involves the quality of technology, which has increased dramatically in recent years. Keeping tech up and running is not as much of a challenge as it once was.

“When I started working in technology over 25 years ago, the tech didn’t always work,” Michael explains. “Qualified technology people were in high demand and the better your tech skills, the more you earned. But things have changed. In today’s world, tech works much better. Those who support it aren’t as busy as they once were.”

Globalization is another development that is challenging the security of certain tech jobs. The Covid-19 pandemic proved that geography is irrelevant when it comes to staffing. As a result, the pool for tech employees is much larger than it was just a few years ago.

“Do you think a business would prefer to pay $200,000 to an engineer in the US or $56,000 to an engineer in India?” Michael asks. “In either case, the person is receiving equivalent compensation when adjusted for cost of living and will be performing the same quality of work. This means a company can get four capable people overseas for the price of a single person in the US. If you were the CEO, who would you hire?”

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the third development that is reshaping the tech space. AI tools like ChatGPT have already proven they can code. To compete, developers will need to develop new skills that AI cannot offer.

Skills that can boost your tech career

To stay competitive, tech workers need to add business skills to their tech talents. Many applicants know how to configure technology, but few know how technology can transform the business where it is being deployed.

“Developing your business acumen allows you to understand the value that technology brings to organizations,” Michael says. “When you add business acumen to your tech skills, you are better equipped to help a business increase its revenue, its employee productivity, and its profits.”

Leadership skills will also help tech workers to have successful careers. Technology can’t replace leadership. Good companies will always look to hire and promote those who can lead others.

“Early in my life, I heard an African proverb that changed the trajectory of my career,” Michael says. “It states that if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. That’s the secret of success in tech or any field. Build a great team and be able to lead that great team and you will advance in your career.”

Being able to sell is another business skill that can help tech professionals. To be effective and advance, tech pros must be able to sell customers on solutions, sell management on the need for resources, and sell their teams on the importance of contributing to projects. Success in any elite technology role requires being able to sell.

Shifting from engineering to architecture

As engineers and other hands-on professionals add business acumen, leadership skills, and soft skills to their capabilities, they become a more critical part of the organization. Another step they can take to increase their value is to shift their focus from engineering to architecture.

“Engineers that are hands-on only without great communication skills, leadership skills, or sales skills will struggle as the tech field continues to evolve,” Michael warns. “Architects are not as vulnerable, as they focus on designing systems that improve business performance. In fact, architects are the key to digital transformation.”

Technology architects, like cloud architects, enterprise architects, and network architects, assist businesses in leveraging technology to improve business performance. They provide a unique and valuable mix of technology expertise and business acumen.

“Architects understand the customer’s business problem and the ways in which technology can solve the problem,” Michael says. “They bring the human touch to the digital transformation process, which is why they cannot be replaced by technology.”

Business

Ipsos Helps Brands Understand How They Get Customer Experience Wrong & Why It’s Costing Them Millions

Published

3 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Matthew Wiles

For brands looking to succeed in the modern business ecosystem, the customer experience (CX) is not something companies can afford to ignore. CX is a direct driver of revenue, loyalty, and growth for organizations.

Ipsos, one of the world’s leading market research firms, helps brands understand that failing to focus on the customer experience can lead to lost sales, which in turn can translate to not only millions in lost revenue but also lost trust and credibility in the market.

How brands still get CX wrong

“The customer decision and desire to do business with brands directly affect the bottom line,” says Brad Christian, Chief Commercial Officer at Ipsos – Experience Practice.

Customer experience may sound like a simple concept, but many brands still get it wrong. CX goes beyond surveys and feedback. Leaders who fail to connect feedback in a meaningful way to goals such as retention, repeat visits or purchases, advocacy, and operational performance fail to deliver on their service promises. The emotional and functional disconnect can spell trouble for brands. The most polished advertising campaigns cannot make up for a frustrating customer interaction or a promise that a business cannot fulfill.

According to Ipsos’s internal research, many customers today see service as too automated and impersonal. More than half report that their experience is worse than promised.

These findings don’t just result in disappointed buyers. They result in lost customers, negative feedback, and a long-term impact on the business as a whole.

“Brands have to manage the entire customer experience across each and every touchpoint,” explains Christian.

Poor CX can be expensive

Executives can often underestimate how expensive a history of poor CX can be. Global losses can reach into the billions while leaders wonder what went wrong. In an age of rapid social media communication, a single negative interaction can spell disaster for a company, leading to reduced customer spending or the entire loss of its most loyal customers.

Those losses are not just reflected in lost revenue, however. Customer acquisition and marketing dollars can also be lost as companies continue to spend money trying to retain their customer base, often skipping right over the experience part of retention.

Poor customer experience can be a deep operating problem that creates a domino effect, decimating businesses from the inside out. These poor experiences can impact not only present and future customer acquisition but also business leaders and employees.

CX matters more in today’s business landscape

The customer experience has always mattered, but it may matter more to brands trying to make it in a modern, ultra-competitive, digitally-driven business landscape. Good experiences encourage repeat purchases, boost loyalty, and increase the likelihood that customers will go online and recommend a brand to others.

“Customer experience isn’t an isolated function,” says Christian. “It’s ‌part of a larger system that ensures that brands measure and manage customer experience data and then act on that data to drive action where customer experience gaps exist.”

Brands also have to seek to understand today’s customers, who expect experiences that are seamless, authentic, and relevant. As more and more companies hop on the automation train, they will want to reassure their customers that the human element that many people consider important still exists.

At Ipsos, six drivers of strong customer relationships form the bedrock of the company’s CX platform, something that they refer to as the “Forces of CX”: certainty, fair treatment, control, status, belonging, and enjoyment.

Customers want to feel that if they have an issue with a brand, it will be handled and that their concerns will be understood. They don’t want the customer experience to feel like a battleground; they want it to feel fair and human.

“Customer experience isn’t just a nicer experience,” says Christian. “It ties directly to specific financial outcomes, whether that be increased sales, greater market share, or stronger brand loyalty.”

How Ipsos helps businesses deliver customer experiences that matter

Ipsos turns customer feedback into reliable, actionable, decision-ready information. The company goes beyond simple satisfaction metrics and implements voice-of-the-customer programs, journey analytics, relationship feedback, and quality research.

“Brands don’t just need data,” Christian says. “They need measurements as to how they are delivering on their brand promise and predictive modeling to tie financial performance measures to those measures to help them determine where to invest to maximize the customer experience and understand what financial impact those investments might deliver for the business.”

Ipsos measures the interactions that matter ‌most and shows brands how each interaction can affect retention, share of spend, and efficiency. For brands that are trying to reduce the guesswork behind CX, Ipsos helps them move beyond cosmetic fixes to achieve real, meaningful change.

Customer expectations can shift on a dime, influenced by society, social media, and even changing trends. Ipsos helps brands meet those rapidly changing customer expectations with hard evidence and comprehensive metrics.

Today’s brands need to understand how to get the customer experience right. Ipsos has the insights needed to drive home the deep importance of CX in today’s marketplace.