Project Management in 2013

To support the increasing number of large projects that involve cross-department teams, more employees are required to have project management skills to ensure timely completion of projects within the allocated budgets. Project management is important in today’s business environment when you consider the consequences of the absence of good project management. It makes it possible for companies to focus on priorities, track and measure performance, overcome challenges and problems, become flexible enough to adapt to change and achieve higher performance and a higher probability of success in each project.

ESI (News - Alert), a provider of project management training, recently shed light on the top 10 trends in project management for 2013, revealing expert leadership is lacking in all areas of project management, portfolio management and program management.

“This year’s trends bring a murky problem into specific light,” said J. LeRoy Ward, executive vice president, ESI International (News - Alert). “Leadership skills are lacking within the project community, and until project managers learn how to properly lead teams and their projects, project execution will continue to be a problem.”

According to ESI, organizations will continue to call for strong project leaders but will focus on investments in hard skills, which are technical abilities that can be defined and measured as opposed to personality traits and skills. In May 2012, more than 235,000 online job listings posted requirements for project management skills, indicating a 12-percent increase in hiring compared to May 2011, and more than 51 percent compared to 2010.

Verticals such as IT, engineering, and business and financial occupations have seen the highest demand for project management staff. Computer systems analysts, IT project managers, industrial engineers, marketing managers and computer software engineers are the top five positions where project management skill is required in their respective job ads.

The company also foresees the U.S. government upgrading its PM certification in the face of rising criticism, and improving vendor management practices will top the list of skills for project managers.

“Many of this year’s trends focus on the need to improve project skills, process and the overall management of our initiatives,” said Ward. “It is clear that it is no longer possible to hire project managers and expect results. We need our PMs to be experts, and take control of our projects to get maximum results.”

Alorica, a provider of business process outsourcing solutions, is continually turned to for its expertise in different fields.  Its solutions are utilized by some of the world’s most elite brands, spanning both the business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) sectors and all corners of industries. It helps you maximize the value of customer relationships across multiple channels and touch points, spanning the entire customer lifecycle. Its solutions include customer experience management solutions, B@B solutions, supply chain management solutions, hosted solutions and social customer relationship management solutions.

Offering services for industries such as healthcare, technology, telecommunications, media and entertainment, financial services, energy and utilities, consumer products and retail and automotive, Alorica boasts a vast and varied client portfolio with an average client tenure of more than thirteen years.

To learn more about how Alorica can help you implement project goals, increase efficiency and improve customer relationships, visit www.alorica.com.

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