WWT Will Hire Up To 700 New Employees In 2023
‘Overall, we have a budget to hire 500, 600, 700 people next year,’ World Wide Technology CEO Jim Kavanaugh tells CRN. ‘We will be very, very cautious and slow to do that in the first six months of the year.’
While many IT companies are laying off employees, channel superstar World Wide Technology expects to hire up to 700 new employees in 2023.
“Overall, we have a budget to hire 500, 600, 700 people next year,” WWT CEO Jim Kavanaugh told CRN.
“We will be very, very cautious and slow to do that in the first six months of the year,” said Kavanaugh, who has led the $15 billion St. Louis-based company for over 30 years. “We’ll be wanting to see how things are progressing in January, February and March before we start pulling the trigger on some of those new hires.”
[Related: WWT CEO: 5 Big IT Trends And Leadership Advice For 2023]
Kavanaugh is expecting sales growth at WWT in 2023 to help spur the hiring spree even with some economic uncertainty ahead.
“We are being cautious going into next year just based on a lot of the macroeconomic trends,” said WWT’s CEO. “We’re still reeling from supply chain issues, but that’s starting to free up. You can see a lot of the products starting to ship. Our backlog is up going into next year across every sector that we have—so that’s very positive.”
WWT currently has more than 8,000 employees in more than 55 offices around the world.
WWT Triples IT Services Organization
Four years ago, World Wide Technology set a goal to triple its services organization by the end of 2023 as demand for various technology services spiked.
“Next year will be the fifth year of our five-year plan. We’re very close and on track of tripling the size of that services group—both top line and bottom line,” Kavanaugh said.
Kavanaugh expects many of the hundreds of new employees hired next year to be services professionals.
“We will be a little more aggressive in our services area, but we don’t treat every practice area within our services portfolio the same,” he said. “There are certain areas that may have more demand today than other areas. Those areas, based on the demand, we will continue to build and hire.”
WWT has become an IT services leader over the past several years thanks, in part, to Kavanaugh’s leadership vision.
In fact, WWT won Cisco Systems’ prestigious Global Service Provider Partner of the Year award this year.
“We have a services organization that covers a broad range of capabilities that are unique in regard to the depth and breadth of scope that we have,” WWT’s CEO said. “That involves high-level advisory services around management and consulting, working on digital strategies, and bringing together teams that are working on software development—whether it’s building a customer experience, mobile apps, health care, patient experiences, fan experiences, etc.”
IT Layoffs In 2022
This year has seen a large number of layoffs at IT companies spanning all industries and company sizes.
Some of the technology companies cited hiring too many people over the past few years as the reason for needing layoffs.
For example, San Francisco-based customer engagement platform company Twilio laid off 11 percent of its workforce, or about 850 employees.
“Twilio has grown at an astonishing rate over the past couple years. It was too fast, and without enough focus on our most important company priorities,” said Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson in September. “I take responsibility for those decisions, as well as the difficult decision to do this layoff.”
Other IT companies are laying off employees due to underperforming sales.
Last month, HP Inc. said it will eliminate between 4,000 and 6,000 employees by 2025 after reporting a fourth-quarter 2022 sales drop of over 11 percent year over year.
WWT, ranked No. 10 on CRN’s 2022 Solution Provider 500 list, has been honored 11 years in a row by Fortune and Great Place to Work for its blend of IT innovation and leadership.
“There’s a lot of things to be excited about when I look at the market today,” said Kavanaugh. “But there’s a lot of uncertainty when you look at inflation and challenges relative to the stock market. One of the ways [customers] are going to combat inflation and rising interest rates is by leveraging technology more effectively.”