<p>McKinsey says we are already critically short of "data scientists" even as the hype about Big Data takes off. IBM goes even further and says we are short talent in every aspect of what Cognizant calls the SMAC stack (social, mobile, analytics and cloud). Around the world.</p><p>If it feels like deja vu all over again, you would be right. In the late 90s, in the run up to Y2K, there were supposed shortages in ERP, testing, COBOL, Assembler skills. And wages and consultant rates rose. In the dot.com boom which continued even after Y2K, hustling became an art form. There were eCommerce, marketplace, Java teams which had to be "hired within 24 hours, or a competing client would get them"</p><p>Expect more of that this time around, but let's be smarter:</p><p>a) Most outsourcers do not have the SMAC talent themselves. How many can show resumes in the social space with Yammer or Radian6 experience? In reverse, how many are positioning their Lotus Notes and collaboration experience as "social"? In mobile, the majority of the million+ apps in the iOS and Android marketplaces did NOT come from the major outsourcers. They came mostly from mom and pop shops. When it comes to analytics, sure they can show they have had some HANA training, but how many of their staff have even rudimentary pattern recognition skills? When it comes to cloud, how many of them have cloud data centers which could compete with Amazon? How many have shared service centers which could compete with NetSuite when it comes to apps management? What really makes them cloud qualified? We need more disciplined sourcing buy qualified teams, not the brand name. Even better buy smaller qualified teams and more IP and automation to do the job.</p><p><a href="http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/56253/talent-sourcing-fool-me-twice-shame-on-me/">Keep reading...</a></p>