DDLS and Ouellette Announce International Strategic Partnership for IT Professional Development
DDLS (Dimension Data Learning Solutions), Australia’s largest provider of technical IT training, certification and professional development, today announced a strategic partnership with Ouellette & Associates Consulting, Inc. (O&A) to provide the learning and development content to help businesses strengthen and evolve their IT departments and personnel.
Under the agreement, DDLS will license O&A's "T3" Services and Toolsets for delivery in the thriving Australian IT market:
- Talent Development - a comprehensive series of leadership and professional development workshops focused on Relationship Management, Project Management and Vendor Management.
- Talent Assessment - SaaS-based tools for IT competency assessment, talent development and analytics, and employee engagement and retention.
- Thought Leadership - Lou Markstrom, DDLS’ Professional Development Subject Matter Expert has collaborated with O&A to develop and publish an Australian version of the highly recommended book ‘Unleashing the Power of IT’, which discusses how to create an IT workforce and culture for the 21st century. The book will help IT leaders across Australia and the AsiaPac Region to provide a roadmap for their IT talent development and culture change initiatives.
DDLS CEO Mal Shaw recently participated in the iTNews Benchmark CIO Awards ceremony, and noted: “The demands placed upon CIOs have never been higher. To be successful in today’s fast paced, increasingly complex, and ever changing business environment, they are transforming their culture and developing their IT workforce in new ways.
“IT professionals are increasingly finding themselves in business-facing and partnering roles. They are finding expectations placed upon them from business leaders to provide competitive advantage and to leverage technology to change the way they do business. To succeed in this new environment, every member of the IT team needs to add strong business skills to their technical and process skills.
“They need to apply a new mindset and develop the new IT professional skill set with increased competence, confidence, commitment and consistency. O&A’s services and toolsets help address this.
“With the disruptive effects of Cloud Computing and the Consumerisation of IT, it’s never been more important for IT Professionals to make sure that they have a full range of professional skills. We are delighted to announce this partnership with Ouellette & Associates. We are also very fortunate to have Lou on our team, who has a track record of success running culture change and other transformation programs with DDLS’ clients, and who is leading our team of facilitators who deliver these services. It will allow us to bring industry leading, IT-specific professional development and workforce transformation services to our clients across Australia, guiding their strategic initiatives,” said Mal.
According to O&A CEO and President Dan Roberts, "With DDLS, we have a strategic partner who shares our values, our commitment to delivering exceptional service and value, and our passion for developing the human side of the IT equation. This is an exciting partnership and supports O&A's expansion into new geographies. It also allows us to better support the global needs of our clients while making our services easily accessible to a market that is increasingly focused on IT talent development and transformation.
“We have just spent a couple of weeks meeting face to face with some of Australia’s leading CEOs and CIOs and their feedback has been insightful. They shared with us they want to prepare their IT workforce for success as an integral and integrated member of the business team.
“O&A's suite of two and three-day IT professional development workshops are being leveraged by today's savviest CIOs and IT Leaders to arm their IT staff with critical new thinking and skills to propel their evolution, and more importantly, to expand their ability to contribute to the business beyond their current skill set,” said Dan.
DDLS is scheduling these courses from May 2014 onwards. For more information: http://ddls.com.au/VendCourseGrp/BPD/253.htm