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Strategic leadership in IT industry

Executive Summary

Leadership is essential in organisations at all levels to promote the culture of innovation in

the era of digital evolution. The following research report, has referred industry as
information technology industry that forms the basis information in understanding the role of
strategic leadership in identifying opportunities in crisis management. Leadership helps in
improving organisational resources by improving efficiency by giving the proper vision and
purpose to the employees of the organisation. It focuses majorly on two key challenges faced
by IT industry which are maintaining sustainable competitive advantage and gender
imbalance. The major challenge faced by organisations are that they are converting their
workplaces in digital workplaces which has highlighted challenges in sustaining competitive
advantage by leveraging technology with innovation[ CITATION Kar21 \l 1033 ]. Secondly,
the another crisis discussed in the report was quite certain that IT companies lack female
employees with the gender pay gap, inclusion, and diversity at all levels of the management
with only 19% of women working in tech industry. The study bridges the research gap by
understanding the role of leadership in the information technology industry to enhance
productivity and efficiency.
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Strategic leadership in IT industry

Table of contents

S no. Topics Page number

1. Introduction 3
2. About the industry 3
3. Explain the leadership topic 4
4. Implications 6

 Sustainable completive advantage

 Gender imbalance in IT

5. Conclusions and Recommendations 10s

6. References 12
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Introduction

Leadership is essential in organisations at all levels to promote the culture of innovation in

the era of digital evolution. It aids in improving organisational resources by improving
efficiency by giving the proper vision and purpose to the employees of the organisation. With
the advancement in technology and innovations, organisations has recognised the importance
of leadership roles to cater to the dynamic market demands, customer landscape,
technological advancements, cyber security parameters and business
requirements[ CITATION How20 \l 1033 ]. In the following research report, the industry
referred as information technology industry that forms the basis information in understanding
the role of strategic leadership in identifying opportunities in crisis management. It focuses
majorly on two key challenges faced by IT industry which are maintaining sustainable
competitive advantage and gender imbalance. The study bridges the research gap by
understanding the role of leadership in the information technology industry to enhance
productivity and efficiency.

About the industry

Information technology industry has witnessed the fastest growth throughout the globe in
developed and developing economies from the last decade. The global information
technology industry is on pace to reach $5.2 trillion in 2020 that is recognised as a broad term
that. Comprises two major components which are IT services and Business process
outsourcing (BPO) which aids in designing, manufacturing and selling computer software
products and services, as well as hardware systems for managing and storing digital data
(Riggs, 2015). The industry accounts for significant portion of economic activity related to
economic jobs and personal lives as the world is becoming more digital, more connected and
automated[ CITATION ITI19 \l 1033 ].

The global software & services industry grew by 4.6% in 2012 to reach a value of $2,596
billion with the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the industry in the period 2008–12
was 4.8%. Information Technology (IT) services are the largest segment of the global
software & services industry, accounting for 48.3% of the industry's total value[ CITATION
Ran14 \l 1033 ]. IT industry is a key driver of economic growth for domestic and global
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development, as a chief contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP) and the employee
rate. The industry is highly fragmented surging for new information and communications
technologies designed to take advantage in the areas of expertise, cost effective production
locations, location of markets and effective use of information and communications
technology.

Leadership perspectives in Information Technology

Leadership has always played an crucial role of leading a successful organisation as good
leader can construct the various skills and characteristics to get an organisation through the
rough time by pulling them outward from the downward spiral[ CITATION Mal17 \l 1033 ].
Some scholars believes that the credit for the success or failure of organisation is highly
dependent on the leadership skills and implementation leading the diverse workforce towards
the common organisational goal. With the changing nature of the workforce, IT industry is
prone to the issues such as downsizing and declining corporate loyalty it requires effective
leaders that unites the workforce towards sustainable project management and team building
at all stages of the organisation. According to Capowski (1994), leadership for the IT era
must focus on encouraging and sustaining corporate nurturing and provide an atmosphere
where innovation is encouraged and creativity is rewarded. On the other hand, Burns (1978)
argued leadership as "chaotic, reciprocal interaction among people with potentially
conflicting goals, values and ideals". However, the new definition of leadership was stressed
by White (1997) as effective leaders aids in identifying productive areas of uncertainty by
acting differently and seeking inspiration from different sources.

The shifting trends in technology and leading edge technology advancements requires leaders
to take informed, data-driven and practical business decisions keeping in mind a multitude of
factors like revenue, budget, customer base, solution relevance and business competition.
Apparently, IT industry is highly characterised with creativity and problem-solving skills,
leaders are required to continuously update their knowledge based on the dynamic business
environment. Organisations strives for strategic leadership that act as catalyst in the crisis
management by expressing the strategic vision for the organisation by motivating and
persuading others to acquire the vision of the organisation.
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The major challenge faced by organisations are that they are converting their workplaces in
digital workplaces which has highlighted challenges in sustaining competitive advantage by
leveraging technology with innovation[ CITATION Kar21 \l 1033 ]. Figure 1 demonstrates
the demographics of global technological leaders across the globe.

Figure 1:[ CITATION Kar21 \l 1033 ]

The exponential growth in the cyber infrastructure and information technology solutions has
led to the growth of cyber-attacks disrupting the leaders cognition and exploiting
vulnerabilities of emerging technologies[ CITATION Jac14 \l 1033 ]. According to the
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Symantec cybercrime report published in April 2012 states that cyber-attacks cost US$114

billion each year to recover from cyber-attacks that is significantly growing. The survey
conducted by Symantec interviewing 20,000 people across 24 countries, 69% reported being
the victim of a cyber-attack in their lifetime where 14 adults become the victim of a cyber-
attack every second, or more than one million attacks every day[ CITATION Jac14 \l 1033 ].
The advantage in the era of new internet technologies with millions and billions of active
users has led to increase in some of online cyber-crimes. Social media, such as Facebook and
Twitter, has shown explosive growth in recent years with more than 450 million active user
accounts in Twitter and almost 1 billion users on Facebook[ CITATION Jac14 \l 1033 ].

Implications

1. Sustainable competitive advantage and Strategic leadership

With increase in the global competition, the importance achieving sustainable competitive
advantage has obtained much attention. Barney and Hesterly (2008) has defined competitive
advantage as the medium to fetch high profits that attracts competition. On the other hand,
some competitive advantages are sustainable where competitors are unable to imitate the
source of advantage to provide better offering. Furthermore, Reed and Defillippi (1990)
defines sustainable advantage as some barrier where the organisation’s performance imitation
is restricted by generating value, rareness, inability to imitated and imperfect
substitution[ CITATION Mah141 \l 1033 ]. With reference to strategic leadership and
sustainable competitive advantage, many researchers has explored the theoretical leadership
components emphasizing on developing human capital over exploiting and maintaining
organisational core competencies to reflect the importance of human resources. Human and
social capital are both successful and significant contributors to achieve sustainable
competitive advantage. Sustainable competitive advantage gives an organization the ability to
stay ahead of present or potential competition with their superior performance to achieve
market leadership.

In the dynamic and competitive world, leaders are under great pressure to lead the team
effectively and efficiently with their varied leadership and managerial styles to work
proactively and take advantage over the opportunities from their competitors[ CITATION
Soe19 \l 1033 ]. The critical role of strategic leadership emphasized on developing a potential
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human capital over exploiting and maintaining organisational core competencies that creates
a value for the organisation[ CITATION Mah141 \l 1033 ]. The leaders must adapt with
complex adaptive environment that sustains profit from the market forces in the manner that
is valuable for the shareholders without creating chaos and challenges in the future. The
leaders must strategize and make significant changes in their business processes, products
and services that will impact the decisions and actions, particularly at the top level impacting
majorly on the business performance and success. Developing a successful customer base
through differentiation is another key to sustaining a competitive advantage by offering value
added services with an attractive combination of price, features, quality and other value-
added attributes. Figure 2 below shows the advantages of attaining sustainable competitive
advantage through leadership programmes and models.
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Figure 2 [ CITATION Soe19 \l 1033 ]

As Hughes and Beatty (2005) suggest that strategic leaders should have certain capabilities
because the process of creating and sustaining competitive advantage is complex and time
consuming. Firstly, they must have clear vision that is specific, measurable, attainable,
results-driven, and time sensitive. Secondly, they must inherit the skill to invest and use the
development of new technologies that improves business processes, redesign product and
services, and anticipate future threats. Lastly, they must gave the capability to formulate and
implement strategy to develop and use human capital towards the common goal of the
organisation[ CITATION Mah141 \l 1033 ]. A leader with poor strategic leadership will give
advantage to its rivals to duplicate the benefits of the company’s value-creating strategy.
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Gender imbalance in the IT industry

IT industry has witnessed the lack of female employees with increase in gender pay gap,
inclusion and diversity has a significant impact on the IT industry. The study conducted
concluded that majority of women in the IT sector has witnessed the gender inequality
[ CITATION She21 \l 1033 ]. For instance, in a survey event software company Bizzabo
used facial analytics software to scan 60,000 speaker images from thousands of professional
events in 23 countries over five years, deducing that 78 percent of tech event speakers are
male whereas the survey of 500 women in the United States and United Kingdom who have
attended tech conferences revealed that 70 percent of panelists reported being the ‘lone
woman’[ CITATION Hup20 \l 1033 ]. Another study conducted by Accenture and Girls
shows that 50% of women abandon technology careers by the age of 35[ CITATION
May21 \l 1033 ]. With the advent of pandemic, where women are juggling with their career,
remote learning, children education and caretaking of elderly people, technology industry
should revamp their gender imbalance by creating the culture that values inclusion and
diversity. Figure 3 depicts the participation of women in the technological industry all levels
of management.

Figure 3 [ CITATION The201 \l 1033 ]

It is quite certain that IT companies lack female employees with the gender pay gap,
inclusion, and diversity at all levels of the management with only 19% of women working in
tech industry[ CITATION Why19 \l 1033 ]. The UK technology sector is growing
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substantially, currently 2.6 times faster than the overall UK economy.  With the current
challenge of crisis management in the IT industry, there is urgent requirement for female
leadership for a more fair and equitable workplace to achieve work/life balance, parenting,
juggling many responsibilities and multitasking. There is upward trend in the gender gap in
IT industry, where in 2001, IT software was led by 25.7% female and 17.3% of leadership
roles were held by women. Whereas, currently the percentage has just increased by 40%,
creating a bigger leadership gap of 9.4%, despite the gains success and technical
advancement in the industry. The reason could be the increase in the personal choice and
emotional bias, where there is ego clash among genders regarding leadership roles. The
problem could be rectified wisely by adopting the tougher approach for transparent culture,
such as the introduction of Mind the gap, a global data driven project, to investigate the basis
of compensation, policies and procedures, to ensure that company achieve equality.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, it can be concluded that with the advancement in technology and innovations,
organisations has recognised the importance of leadership roles to cater to the dynamic
market demands, customer landscape, technological advancements, cyber security parameters
and business requirements which is the largest segment of the global software & services
industry, accounting for 48.3% of the industry's total value[ CITATION Jac14 \l 1033 ]. The
report has discussed the leadership crisis management by focusing on the two areas:
Achieving Sustainable competitive advantage and managing gender imbalance in the IT
industry.

The critical role of strategic leadership in achieving sustainable competitive advantage is

developing a potential human capital over exploiting and maintaining organisational core
competencies that creates a value for the organisation[ CITATION Mah141 \l 1033 ] by
making significant changes in their business processes, products and services that will
impact the decisions and actions, particularly at the top level impacting majorly on the
business performance and success. Sustainable competitive advantage of the bank stems from
the effective strategic leaders. It is the key element at the top management level to remain
focused as the time of crisis reminding the team members of their achievements and
encourage them to set short term, achievable goals. The commitment and enthusiasm of the
leader would help the organisation in achieving their mission and vision by leading the team
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towards the organisational goal. According to the findings above, it is recommended that
strategic leaders must inherit great communication and managerial skills to compete in the
highly dynamic environment and to obtain the competitive edge over competitors. Effective
capabilities would help them in building the effective team and gaining above- average return
in the long run.

Secondly, the another crisis discussed in the report was quite certain that IT companies lack
female employees with the gender pay gap, inclusion, and diversity at all levels of the
management with only 19% of women working in tech industry[ CITATION Why19 \l
1033 ]. The UK technology sector is growing substantially, currently 2.6 times faster than
the overall UK economy.  There is upward trend in the gender gap in IT industry, where in
2001, IT software was led by 25.7% female and 17.3% of leadership roles were held by
women. The reason could be the increase in the personal choice and emotional bias to adopt
the transparent culture, such as the introduction of Mind the gap, a global data driven project,
to investigate the basis of compensation, policies and procedures, to ensure that company
achieve equality. Hence, it is recommended that to leverage the benefits of gender diversity
organisations are required to take holistic approach to promote gender parity and manging
talent in the organisation. The report has critically analysed and evaluate the concept of
leadership practices in IT industry. Further, the various implications, conclusions and
recommendations has been drawn.
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References

Maynard, P. (2021, March 3). Are We Really Closing The Gender Gap In Tech? Retrieved
from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/03/03/are-we-really-closing-
the-gender-gap-in-tech/?sh=47684d805d71

Mahdi, O., & Almsafr, M. (2014). The Role of Strategic Leadership in Building Sustainable
Competitive Advantage in the Academic Environment. Social and Behavioral Sciences,
129(5).
Malcolm, D. (2017, July). Leadership in Information Technology: Leadership theories,
perspectives and ethical dilemmas. The Siegel Institute Journal of Applied Ethics,
2(1).
How the Tech Leadership Role Will Evolve in 2020. (2020, July 17). Retrieved from
https://industrytoday.com/how-the-tech-leadership-role-will-evolve-in-2020/
Hupfer, S. (2020, March 18). Closing the tech conference gender gap. Retrieved from
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology/gender-gap-in-tech-
industry.html
IT Industry Outlook 2020. (2019, November). Retrieved from
https://www.comptia.org/content/research/it-industry-outlook-2020

Jaccard, J., & Nepal, S. (2014, August). A survey of emerging threats in cybersecurity.
Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 80(5), 973-993.
Kark, K., Phillips, A., & Briggs, B. (2021). The kinetic leader: Boldly reinventing the
enterprise. Findings from the 2020 Global Technology Leadership Study.

Rangarajan, K., & Tiwari, S. K. (2014). Evolution of Global IT Services Industry: Impact of
Technological advancements and Business needs. IOSR Journal of Business and
Management, 16(5), 33-40.
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Strategic leadership in IT industry

Soehari, T., & Budiningsih, I. (2019). Competitive Advantage Leadership in the Ultra
Modern Era.
Sheth, H. (2021). Women in IT sector see improved gender inequality levels over past 2
years: Report. Mumbai: BusinessLine.

Why does the tech industry still have a gender imbalance? (2019, July 10). Retrieved from
https://www.relocatemagazine.com/articles/human-resources-why-does-the-tech-
industry-still-have-a-gender-imbalance-0719
The Industry Gender Gap. (2020). Retrieved from
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_FOJ_Executive_Summary_GenderGap.pdf