Over three-fourths of companies believe that mobile technology will have a positive effect on their organizations. Also, over half of companies surveyed feel confident about their ability to implement initiatives like mobile technology, cloud computing and social media. However, companies are not confident about their ability to combat today’s IT worker shortage. Also, many companies say that they do not have an effective workforce planning strategy.

“No matter how much confidence there is in the strategy, the only way to make certain projects successful is to have the right people in place to plan, build and run the program,” stated Rachel Russell, director of TEKSystems, the company that organized the survey. “So many times we see organizations have to rework key IT projects that are over budget and behind schedule because workforce planning was an afterthought in the process.”

Fifty-six percent of companies said that they did not have enough staff to execute mobile initiatives. In fact, over 60 percent of companies surveyed indicated a lack of willingness on a part of their management to implement better workforce planning, particularly IT workforce, and IT organizational infrastructure. Other key factors that may inhibit mobile adaptation are lack of an enterprise-wide strategy and insufficient budgeting.

“Organizations have to dedicate themselves 100 percent to finding the right people and building the right competencies over time,” Russell commented in a press release. “Most of the time organizations put a great deal of emphasis on selecting the right technologies and partners and not enough on creating a strategy to address their workforce needs. The bottom line is that people make projects successful. Failing to devote the proper amount of attention to them can severely impact the business outcomes of an IT project.”

A CNN study showed that nearly 22 percent of science, technology, engineering and math students drop out of college, which is affecting both U.S. workforce recruiting and the ability of U.S. firms to compete globally. Causes include the culture of these programs, which is designed to winnow down the number of students, to the tenure process for professors, which may reward researchers more than it rewards professors.

According to Tech Republic, filling an IT position at an American company takes 37 percent longer than filling other positions. Also, IT salaries have risen 19 percent, where salaries for other professions have decreased by five percent on average. All of these factors combine to make recruiting and retaining IT professionals a daunting challenge for today’s corporations, particularly those that cannot afford to pay high salaries.

Many tech executives feel optimistic about mobile technology, with the vast majority agreeing that the greatest benefit of the technology is that it will increase worker productivity. However, without enough workers to go around, increasing productivity may not be enough.