'Information technology is increasingly a core part of business in many firms. It is difficult to think of a bank or an insurance company, or almost any large company, having a successful business without IT. It is a fundamental core discipline that affects core competitiveness,' Professor Clark said.

This has given rise to the relatively new discipline of Information System Management (ISM) within the IT field. Professor Clark said that being an IT professional was 'not just about [knowing whether] a software project is completed on time, but how this project will impact the overall technology framework of the company and its competitiveness in the market'.

What this boils down to is twofold: firstly equipping technology professionals with management skills similar to that of an MBA, and secondly teaching management professionals about IT so that they can manage this core function effectively.

The risks of not managing IT correctly had dire consequences for all companies, not just ones in the technology sector, he said. He cited the example of the Denver Airport, which was closed for two years after construction was complete because, among other reasons, it couldn't get the bags from the plane to the customers because of bad software.

'The cost of those delays far exceeded the cost of the software. So messing up in information systems management can destroy much more business value than the cost of the contract,' Professor Clark said.

The need for ISM professionals has boomed even further as more companies worldwide look to outsource their IT to low-cost centres around the world.

'Companies are outsourcing to China, India, Bangladesh and other locations. Now if you outsource things and you don't know what you're outsourcing, and how to manage it, you are going to get ripped off. And so the more you outsource, the more critical it becomes to have someone in your organisation with good management skills over IT,' Professor Clark said.

'Many firms underestimate that challenge and say 'we don't know how to do IT, so let's outsource it'. Outsourcing is a good thing; it is efficient, but we need to manage it. That's what companies sometimes forget. This is not just true of IT. It is true of legal, finance, accounting, you name it.'

But the benefits of an ISM qualification also extend to IT professionals. In a business environment, where companies are looking to drive down their costs by outsourcing IT, an ISM qualification allows IT professionals to insulate their careers against risk.

'Hong Kong tends to be more cyclical than other countries, so when there is a boom and bust there is a bigger boom and bust. We really over-build and retrench in a major way. In the dotcom bust there was a retrenchment, and what people found was that if they didn't have better skills than the next guy, then they maybe didn't have a job. So at one point it was important for people to show that they had the ability to manage more effectively to keep their job,' Professor Clark said.

This, he added, was even more true of the market today with the predominance of outsourcing. 'If you want to work for a Hong Kong company you don't want to be doing programming. You want to be managing technology, you want to be managing a brand, or supply chain, or logistics. China, India and other low-cost centres are always going to be able to out-compete local skills on price. So [if] you want to be in IT in Hong Kong you need to be managing technology,' he said.

'I think the larger effect is that employers pay for skills, they don't pay for degrees. The more problems you can solve, or the more value you can add to the organisation, the more you're going to get paid.'