Johannesburg, 03 Jun 2009
Atos Origin, an international IT services company, today announced that it has completed its billing internship programme, with huge success.
It has become increasingly obvious that there is a recruiting issue in key technology areas in South Africa, especially in the telco and ISP market. One of those areas is which Atos Origin in South Africa defined as 'The Billing Developer'. It is hard to find, in the local South African market, consultants with a mix of key competencies (C/C++, Java, UNIX, Perl, Database Management Systems, critical GSM know-how) and the main billing and revenue management products (Oracle BRM, SingleView, BSCS).
For Atos Origin in South Africa, the problem of a severe skills shortage posed a resourcing pain point when trying to build a competent team. Atos Origin, therefore, identified the following general areas of concern:
* In the market
* Lack of skill set
* Lack of experience
* Lack of competence
* General perception
* Companies not always able to get full complement of resources
* Lack of confidence in quality of such resources
* Competition with other employers for the same core individuals
For this reason, Atos Origin in South Africa devised a strategy to find local people, especially those who needed an opportunity. Graduates were canvassed from universities and colleges that were not necessarily well established, with the following key focus areas:
* South African perspective
* Engage in new generation
* Start with a clean slate
* A real purpose to work from the ground up
In April 2008, Atos Origin interviewed 23 candidates and offered 10 of them places to attend the AO SA Billing Internship Programme.
The strategy for developing the interns would be a mix of instructor-led training and practical placements along the following lines:
Training in a mix of technologies
* Billing systems, operating systems, development languages
Industrial placements to cover Atos Origin's Service Delivery Model
* Design, develop, test, deploy
Each of the mentors/tutors were specialised in key subject areas. It was their responsibility to define and deliver the training material.
Today, a year later, Atos Origin in South Africa can boast the successful completion of the programme, with all 10 interns proudly being offered full-time positions as junior developers within the billing team.
Adrian Ralph, Chief Operation Officer, Atos Origin in South Africa, commented: “A significant percentage of privately held companies in South Africa cite the skills shortage as the main constraint for business growth. We at Atos Origin believe the only way to overcome this is for these companies to take the responsibility, be proactive, listen to the needs of the sector and take their own initiative. The Billing Internship Programme is a perfect example of this initiative and I congratulate my team, while also welcoming our 10 newcomers on board.”
Share