The Answer to 'We Have No Digital Talent': Balancing Hiring, In-House Development, and External Resources

The phrase 'we have no digital talent' refers to a shortage of people within a company who can drive IT tool adoption and operation, data utilization, and business digitalization. Small business owners and managers often say it during hiring interviews or when considering IT investment, but in practice it usually blends three distinct shortages: one that hiring should solve, one that in-house development can close, and one that calls for external support. This article organizes the structure behind that shortage and how to choose among hiring, in-house development, and external resources.

IT talent shortages are often cited as a challenge across society as a whole, including large enterprises, but small businesses tend to be at a disadvantage in the hiring market: in name recognition, compensation levels, and the career paths they can offer. In addition, companies not yet large enough to justify a dedicated IT staffer often have existing general-affairs or accounting staff handle IT matters alongside their primary duties, leaving limited time or opportunity to build deeper expertise. Businesses based in regional areas face an added geographic constraint: a smaller pool of candidates compared to urban areas. The relationship between labor shortages generally and digitalization is covered in A Guide to Labor Shortages and DX for Small Businesses.

- Shortage of strategy and planning talent: No one who can judge which tools should be introduced, for which operations, and in what order
- Shortage of implementation and operations talent: No one who can actually configure, run, and maintain the chosen tools or systems
- Shortage of everyday users: No staff on the ground have developed the habit of using the introduced tools and entering or leveraging data

Each of the three options carries a different time horizon and cost structure. Hiring can potentially secure someone who's ready to contribute immediately, but small businesses often struggle to build a strong applicant pool or compete on terms, so hiring can take time. In-house development lets you build on existing staff's understanding of the business, but developing real expertise takes a certain amount of time, and balancing training with existing duties is a challenge along the way. External resources, such as IT advisors, contract development firms, and side-job or multi-job professionals, let a company bring in expertise for exactly the period and scope needed, though some point out that know-how tends not to accumulate internally this way.

External resources are often treated as a single category, but they actually span several distinct forms. An IT advisor typically works close to management as a strategic and planning sounding board, with implementation work often required separately. A contract development firm can comprehensively handle system design, development, and maintenance, making it well suited to filling implementation and operations gaps, though embedding day-to-day use still falls to the client. Side-job or multi-job professionals work within a specific skill area, such as data analysis or website operations, offering relatively low-cost access to expertise, but with constraints on their available hours and scope of involvement. How regional companies tap into remote talent is covered in detail in Using Remote Talent at Regional Companies.

- Identify the type of shortage: First determine whether the bottleneck is at the strategy, implementation, or everyday-use stage
- Set a time horizon: Clarify whether the need is immediate or whether there's room to develop talent over six months to a year
- Start small with external resources: Rather than jumping straight to hiring, one approach is to hand off part of the work to an advisor or side-job professional first, sharpening your sense of the role needed before deciding whether to hire
- Combine in-house development with external resources: A common approach is having in-house staff absorb knowledge while working alongside external talent, gradually internalizing the capability over time

Alongside using external talent, outsourcing routine administrative work itself (BPO) is another option for improving efficiency. The basics of back-office outsourcing are covered in The Basics of Back-Office BPO.

'We have no digital talent' isn't a problem with a single fix. The basic approach is to identify the type of talent that's actually missing, whether strategy, implementation, or everyday use, and combine hiring, in-house development, and external resources according to the time horizon available for addressing it. The first step is simply breaking down and understanding what exactly is missing at your own company.