Hot Verticals

An article in a recent edition of Staffing Industry Review listed some of the hot verticals for this year. They preface the list saying "there are still three years left on the current five year up-cycle" and based on what we've been seeing the author's predictions are spot-on.

Banking
Changes in legislation, consumer driven demand for more online / mobile services, and recent breaches of security are cited as reasons this industry hold great growth for IT professionals. Good news for Kansas City who is home to two large banks & a number of other regional players.

Healthcare
Cerner opened near the racetrack last year and announced big plans for the Bannister complex. Netsmart, a Cerner competitor in the EMR space, along with Perceptive Software are also driving plenty of demand in this vertical. We are also home to several large healthcare insurance companies that will continue to have project demands as healthcare grows and our lawmakers figure out exactly where the ACA is going to settle.

Oil & Gas
Kansas City is not much of a hub for the O&G world, but RiverPoint has a large client in Oklahoma in the business that has been going gangbusters. So this is especially good news for us.

Computer Systems
TMobile will let you trade in your phone every six months. Gearheads line up to get the latest iPad or xBox. Consumers want faster & better computer systems and that will drive demand for manufacturing. Garmin is a perfect example of a local company that will continue to benefit from this trend.

The article goes on to discuss the "Hot Segments" within the verticals. The "Big Three" in my mind are as follows:

Mobile Applications
This goes without saying - demand for mobile will continue to rise as more and more people move away from traditional PC systems to tablets and smartphones. Now might be a good time to sign up for KCITP's Mobile Midwest event. You could make a strong argument that mobile is number one.

Big Data
We live in a world where data is collected. HyVee is giving you a discount on gas in exchange for information on your buying habits. Facebook knows more about us than we know. Data is becoming a very hot commodity and people will be needed to organize, analyze, and (hopefully) protect it. Kansas City has a new Meet-Up Group dedicated to Big Data if you're interested. We've been seeing high demand for all sorts of data folks from analysts to ETL, Business Intelligence, and Hadoop.

Security
Security is my pick for the hottest segment. My parents Visa card was compromised by Target. My debit card was compromised by TJX. Because of it's overall importance to all the other categories on this list Information One only needs to look at the exponential growth of a company like Fishnet to know IS professionals will be in demand for years to come.

RiverPoint has delivered services to client in all these categories so we're very excited to see what 2014 brings.