Upskilling and Co-Creation Imperative to Survival

Although we had seen a glimpse of a similar trend in 2008, the IT sector, in recent times, is undergoing a complete overhaul. With changing technology, it is essential that IT professionals are up to speed with the technology to up-skill themselves. AI is starting to replace humans and taking over the decision making processes. Big data, cloud technologies, digital marketing to analytics, business intelligence, product management and entrepreneurship are all upcoming areas with a huge talent shortage.

Skills related to IT Operations, and in some cases Oracle, Java and .Net, are slowly fading and Natural Language Processing, Swift and Amazon MarketPlace Web Services are in demand. A well educated professional with these new skill sets, on the job domain knowledge and logic required to be a part of the IT sector will be well equipped with qualities to adapt to the changing trends in the market.

Factors such as H1 rule changes, the rupee becoming stronger, digitization, changing of customer tastes, etc impact larger companies a lot quicker, and this is why layoffs are increasing. On the other side, smaller companies who are in the 400-600 people range have carved out a niche for themselves and have shielded themselves from these factors. If you are looking for a safe haven today, this is the type of organization that an IT professional should target because there are diverse opportunities in terms of clients, geographies and lateral and vertical growth.

However, personally, looking into the future, the layoffs, skilling issues, and stress in the global IT sector is an opportunity. Over 30+ years, we have seen, instead of offshoring and similar traditional systems, the approach of co-creating for business growth leads to a lot more stability and a lot less vulnerability to exterior factors as the tech world is reeling under today. In addition it is important to invest in our people – we have a goldmine of talent with an uncanny ability for innovation and adaptability not only in Tier I colleges here in India but also the Tier II and III institutions. Some of our most successful projects have been run by home grown and groomed talent form these colleges and all from home ground!