What skills are most in demand on the market? And what will be necessary to guarantee the competitiveness of talents and companies?
Before being able to answer questions about Business Analysis future skills, it is necessary to dwell on the playing field, on the context in which companies and talents are playing the game in this historical moment.
VUCA and BANI acronyms
VUCA is the acronym that defines our context, i.e. a context characterized by:
- Volatility
- Uncertainty
- Complexity
- Ambiguity
However, the pandemic and socio-political instability created a scenario that made even VUCA seem like an insufficient descriptor. Thus a new acronym has emerged, BANI. Whereby what was once volatile is now Brittle. What was uncertain is now Anxious. What was complex is now Nonlinear, and what which was ambiguous is now Incomprehensible.
Business Analysis Future Skills: people agility
And if the environment in which the organization moves is no longer safe and predictable, old paradigms cannot work. Those according to which one relied on the perpetual motion of one’s company (and one’s own abilities). And by force of inertia one moved with it. Today it is necessary to be ready to constantly evolve, preparing for continuous learning. Both for one’s own and for people, the real engine of the company.
And it is in this scenario that the 3 main challenges of organizations emerge:
- respond in an agile and effective way to the needs that emerge in the context of a volatile market
- maintain market competitiveness
- attract, retain and engage people
Given these challenges and the historical context in which they must be faced, it is clear that the answer to the questions posed initially is agility.
But what does agility mean?
knowing how to do when you don’t know what to do, this means being agile
Learning agility is therefore the ability to learn directly from what one is doing and what is happening.
It is the willingness to learn how to effectively manage new and unforeseen situations or situations of change. How to intuit and face future scenarios. How to get rid of consolidated but no longer functional habits, to find new solutions to new problems.
And if companies are made up of people, it is clear that we need to focus on their development.
World Economic Forums 4 areas of expertise
But which skills to focus on? The World Economic Forum tells us so.
As we can see from the image, there are basically 4 areas of expertise identified by the WEF:
- problem solving
- self leadership or entrepreneurial mindset
- the ability to work in a team
- skills in the use and development of technology
But we also analyze what employers are looking for globally.
From recent research we see that the demand for soft skills continues to grow and many employers consider these skills as important as technical ones when it comes to market competitiveness.
Randstad Analysis
An analysis by Randstad Sourceright Intelligence shows a significant increase in job postings that mention communication and teamwork among the most in-demand skills in the most sought-after roles in the market. Critical thinking, design vision, collaboration, learning agility and creativity are among the fastest growing sought-after skills in recruiter searches.
This growth in the demand for soft skills suggests that employers are looking for talents capable of demonstrating proactivity, accountability and self-leadership and, consequently, of bringing real innovation within the company.