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Skilled labour biggest challenge for AI, IoT, automation

Dubai - There is a severe shortage of skilled labour in the domain of AI, automation, IoT and other IT sectors and this is one of the biggest concerns for companies, according to one of the world's largest industrial automation and information companies.
"One of the biggest concerns worldwide is the shortage of skilled labour. When I talk with colleagues from other companies, one of their major concerns is attracting and retaining talent specialized in the information technologies and solutions; not just in Artificial Intelligence but in automation solutions," said Thomas Donato, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Rockwell Automation.
Donato's advice for companies facing these challenges is that they must invest in people and build solid programs where they can train, retrain and importantly, retain people to secure careers in this space.
The company is looking to grow both organically and inorganically. In 2013, it had acquired vMonitor, a company which gave it access to new customers and technology as well.
"We expect a certain amount of organic growth and a certain amount of inorganic incremental growth in the region. When looking at potential acquisitions, we look at three different fundamentals - market access, technology and domain expertise. Our acquisition of vMonitor provided us all three things. It had a large group of people with solid knowledge in digital oilfields and we were able to increase our footprint as well. As a company we are constantly looking for opportunities for growth partnerships," Donato told Khaleej Times in an interview recently.
"We are a partnership-oriented company," he said, "and in conjunction with our acquisitions, we also look for opportunities for partnerships andother opportunities to grow inorganically."
Rockwell Automation is specifically focused in the industrial space, manufacturing and production of goods of natural resources across all types of industries. Globally, it operates in more than 80 countries, has approximately 23,000 employees revenues in last fiscal year of US$6.7 billion. In Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), the company employs nearly 5,000 people and boasts about $1.3 billion revenue in the last fiscal year.
In the Middle East, Donato revealed, there is good business because a lot of infrastructure is being built. The region has a lot of potential for growth especially from the utilization of new technologies such as manufacturing intelligence to get better insights into production and improve operating margins.
"The Middle East region is rapidly embracing automation. We have seen double-digit growth in a sustainable manner every quarter since we introduced our growth plan 8 years ago. Despite the slump in oil price, we have still seen solid growth; while oil and gas related growth opportunities did not see significant growth in EMEA, we have been able partner across different including water, waste water, district cooling, transport and metals and mining industries, to drive productivity improvements. A case in example is the new metro in Dubai," he said.
Going forward, within the EMEA region, Donato expects faster growth in the automation market.
"Industrial production spending in the region will be much higher than GDP growth over the next few years. As such we anticipate growth to be between 1.5 and two times faster than the automation market. In some markets, we are growing two to three times faster than automation market rate, demonstration of our expertise and that we deliver on our customers' expectations" Donato added.
-waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com