Keeping up with the pace of accelerating digital solutions and products – and ensuring that there are tech talents with the skills to match this level of production – remains a critical challenge.

Unsurprisingly, the drive to increase digital capabilities has led to unprecedented demand for digital skills. This gap in capabilities and skills is not new, however. It’s been a challenge for more than a decade, but due to the combined need for speed and growth, it’s now preventing companies from developing the agility of their teams needed to achieve their digital ambitions. What can companies do to act now?

The digital skills gap goes beyond technology skills. At AND Digital, we’ve identified a unique set of attributes that organizations must adopt to make meaningful progress. Implementing agile ways of working, embedding a digital-first culture, and providing talent with continuous learning opportunities are some of the ground rules.

When we launched AND Digital in 2014, we set out to understand and distill the essence of what drives success in our increasingly fast-paced, technology-driven world. Since then, we have deliberately implemented the patterns, modes of operation, capabilities and mindset to build and evolve.

We believe that every business is now a technology business, with software and data at its heart. However, technology alone is not enough, it remains a human activity. We believe that companies need their own people to innovate, compete and delight their customers. That’s why we work very hard to develop and nurture a mindset and capabilities that enable high performance. This investment in people has brought us great speed and agility.

This knowledge and strategic approach is what we apply to clients, working with them to accelerate their immediate digital needs and helping them develop their internal capabilities. All this in the face of the widely publicized challenge of the “digital skills gap” which is at the heart of our concerns.

Our approach is therefore based on collaboration. When we build teams, we build them with our clients. It is a shared commitment to a common problem, when the right patterns, culture and mindsets are harnessed. Plus, there’s no better way for customers to access it on their own than by working and doing it alongside us.

The “digital skills gap” is a topic that is often misunderstood. For some commentators, the skills gap relates specifically to coding or data, or STEM, skills. For others, it’s simply an expression of not having enough people to complete short-term tasks. However people understand it, the gap is widely recognized as widening.

For us, it’s about having that combination of essential skills, that mindset, and the best practices in place. It is these vital attributes that we actively encourage and help our clients adopt. Digital transformation is the promise of greater business agility through people. Invest in your staff and your business will grow successfully. It takes time and commitment, but it’s worth it.