In the paper, Who Becomes an Inventor in America?  The Importance of Exposure to Innovation Alex Bell, Raj Chetty, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova, and John van Reenen, the authors, make a powerful comment.  The authors say that if Women, Minorities, and Children from low-income families who excel in math and science are identified and nurtured, the innovation pace will quadruple.  Enterprises becoming a “Skilling Factory” is not just a requirement for innovation in Enterprises.  It is the foundational aspect of how an Enterprise can stay ahead and survive the complex changes.

Take, for example, Starbucks.  A few passionate Starbucks team members put together a case and built an advanced mobile app with very detailed ordering features.  Today, a quarter of the sales come from the Mobile App.  Deep Brew, the data brain behind the app, also helps in complex supply chain decisions.  Today, Starbucks App holds so much money that it could be a mid-sized bank

New ideas are constantly changing the way companies conduct business.  Automation and AI are creating jobs at a higher pace than displacing jobs.  Here is an example of new jobs that have entered the various functions (These are essential jobs that have entered, and very advanced AI and Data science jobs are intentionally not highlighted here)

• Human Resources – AI Program manager, a role that analyzes bias across different AI management systems
• Finance – Digital Finance Analyst who supports Global Finance Transformation Projects
• Data Analyst – Integration of AI in data analytics (various AI addons within the data analysis stack are gaining traction)
• Data Annotation – It’s the human-led task of labeling content such as text, audio, images, and video so it can be recognized by machine learning models and used to make predictions.
• AI Risk Management:  The compliance and reputational risks of artificial intelligence pose a challenge to traditional risk-management functions
• BI Engineer- As cloud systems multiply, this role is becoming critical.  A business intelligence developer is an engineer in charge of developing, deploying, and maintaining BI interfaces.  These include query tools, data visualization, interactive dashboards, ad hoc reporting, and data modeling tools
• Digital Marketing – Influencer Marketing at scale.  A platform such as Octoly is becoming important
• Digital Supply Chain – Platforms such as BlueYonder are becoming essential in this category
• Robotics Engineers – A higher degree of plant and process automation (Controllogix).  Uipath and Automation Anywhere on RPA
• Technical Sales Support – Digital Support Specialists with expertise across different digital assets of the company
• Inside Sales – As companies migrate to the SaaS Sales model, the inside sales function is becoming important
• Cloud Systems Installers – As many systems migrate to cloud-based, Enterprises need Remote Centers where the systems can be virtually installed and implemented
• CRM Developers – Skills like SalesForce developer skillsets are becoming premium.  A Salesforce developer is a particular computer programmer who writes software on the Salesforce CRM platform or another piece of CRM cloud technology. 
• Customer Ticketing – Skills around Zendesk and Freshdesk are becoming useful
• Marketing – Predictive platforms such as Anaplan skills are growing

As you can imagine, we are looking at a taxonomy of skills and roles that are rapidly changing.  This approach provides a huge opportunity to design plans around the skills of the various digital platforms useful for a modern-day enterprise.   

In a 1913 address at Columbia, the John Hopkins psychologist John Watson introduced the term behaviorism.  This concept constituted a form of research where Watson believed that a certain amount of conditioning constituted learning.  There are both positives and negatives to this approach, but Digital Conditioning is a beneficial stimulus.  Digital Conditioning means understanding what skills and platforms are emerging and what is the foundation around the same.  This approach also significantly helps in Reskilling journeys.  Imagine building the skills of a marketing analyst in a platform like Anaplan.  It not only prepares the enterprise and as well improves retention

Global geographies are responding.  Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe are gaining significant traction.  There are significant early signs of places like the Caribbean emerging.  Here is a snapshot of Latin America and Caribbean Software Development talent ( a good indicator of the overall digital talent maturity)

Latin America and the Caribbean– Software Development Engineer Ecosystem – excited about emerging Caribbean talent

Africa SDE (Software Development Engineer) Talent Ecosystem

India SDE (Software Development Engineer) Talent Ecosystem is spreading across Tier2 cities