Wings of Change in IT Industry

2001 IT meltdown was a major blow to the industry. Critics were on the rise doughting the industries recovery and they called it the dooms day of IT in India. Fast forward six years n here we are............... New articles like these " Indian cities best for outsourcing: Survey " . We are the Player in the outsourcing game... albiet for our cheapness thats how our labour is referred to now a days.

Few interesting aspects that i noticed

1. Salaries which are being paid to individuals have grown on a continuous basis. Top four companies pay close to 2.2 lpa for a college passout. We have high end tech MNC companies paying quality talent ( which is few right now, due to our college system) anything from 8-12 lpa. This will hamper our competitiveness in the global place. On average Indian companies bill at anything from $15-25 per hour on a IT services project. China is ready to do it at $6 per hour. How are we going to manage this.

2. Companies are recruiting at pace of 20k+ per annum. This is a huge figure compared to earlier times where job openings itself was a big thing. We have abundant talent as referred by our political leaders. But sadly the industry differs with this " MS not keen on hiring fresh Indian grads". Companies now are looking for talent from tier II and III cities, catching them young is the rule of the day. College graduate get job offer in their third year of college. I remember my days of attending walk-ins in blore for a job. Most of them who get placed in college will miss all the important learning you get in a job hunt :-)

3. Quality of work has gone a sea change. We are now mostly into maintanance projects......this statemetn is debatable. To put it this way the share of actual development work in the whole business has come down. The growing monotonity of work is killing people. The ones who are in high tech services are doing niche work for global product companies the rest are lingering in lavish campuses across India. The coveted ONSITE oppurtunities are becoming rarer and tougher now................. partly the blame the offshoring model and tight visa regulations.

4. Change in attitude of companies on how they do business. Joint bidding of companies for big projects is a healthy trend. Indian biggies now stand shoulder to shoulder with IBM n Accentures of the world today. Companies are not shying off from recruiting globally and also acquiring globally. TCS is a marked example in this space, Why TCS prefers 'partner' over 'wife'. Biggest change i observe is companies are now choosy about the way they want to grow....... They are in a healthy position to say NO to global outsourcing player like GE, if it doesnt suit their strategic plans, if i can use the word.

5. Employee hire and FIRE policies have taken interesting turns. Fresh engineers are made to sign bonds for sticking to the company for one-two years depending on the value of the company can extract from you. Retaining experienced people is a major headache for any HR across IT companies. With average attrition ranging from 18-20% the cost advantage indian IT used to have is depleting fast. Companies dont hesitate to terminate employees due to non-performance even if its fresher who is not performing during the training. Read on this article at INFY

6. Now comes the best part. CPIM wants to form a Union for IT employees, they feel that the employees are jailed during their working hours and are made to work for 12 hour shifts without any over time and not being treated like humans. So much media space in West bengal today is about this. Companies fight back saying they can handle their employee welfare in a better manner

All in all feels good to see the industry grow and benefit large number of people. Every new job in IT/ ITES creates 3 new jobs in aligned services which is good for the India as a whole.

Signing off for the day............ IT coolie :-)