To set up this data center, Taylor called upon the services of Dimension Technology Systems. Though nobody from the company possessed a Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) certification originally developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Taylor convinced the firm to send its consultants to school for this knowledge so they could deliver the kind of compliance Westmoreland required.
"It is a major expense for our solution provider," Taylor says of the SAS 70 class. "They are committing to it because they realize that in the compliance-driven marketplace of today, if they don’t do it, they’ll be left out of opportunities in every market." (For more on the pros and cons of outsourcing, read "A Little Help from Your Friends" on Page 90.)
Staffing Struggles
Attracting and keeping good talent is an important issue for all CIOs, but it is particularly challenging for those in the mid-market, according to "The State of the CIO 2006" survey. Larger companies with bigger budgets simply can pay more. And because so many mid-market IT staffs are understaffed and overworked, the burnout rate is high, with some companies losing talented workers in droves to larger and wealthier companies.
At Cascade Designs, an outdoor equipment manufacturer in Seattle that earned somewhere around $75 million last year, CIO Ken Meidell has learned how to adapt to this challenge. After years of losing out to powerhouses such as Boeing, Microsoft and Real Networks in his search for experienced programmers, Meidell finally hit on the strategy of hiring staff members straight out of college and appealing to them with inducements they like: flexibility, individual freedom and, of course, camping gear. So far, the strategy has worked wonders.
To do this, Meidell contacts recruitment offices of local colleges and schedules interviews with computer science and engineering graduates who want jobs in and around the Seattle area. Sure, the big guns recruit in this manner as well, but Meidell says the promise of hands-on work with all of the latest technologies make Cascade stand out from a crowd of companies that can’t promise more than a desk in a cube farm. Over the past few years, the company has hired employees straight from IT programs at the University of Washington, North Seattle Community College and Washington State University. All of these employees are still around.
"There’s nothing wrong with homegrown talent, especially when you get them while they’re young," says Meidell, who reports to the company CEO. "We plug them in on the help desk, then after a year or so, they have a good idea of what they’re interested in and we try to accommodate that."
