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Indian IT industry: coping with ‘problems of growth’

Though enjoying the benefits of growth in the IT and BPO segment, the Indian IT training industry is witnessing what could be termed as ‘problems of growth,’ says Jeetendra Nair

Heard of something called ‘Problems of Growth’? This is typically what the Indian IT training industry is witnessing currently in the marketplace. The training industry is back in full swing, riding high on the growth of IT and BPO services in the country. Being an industry always dependent on global markets, the evident differentiation this time is that the markets are dependent on Indian companies while catering to foreign players. This is further linked to the globalisation wave currently sweeping Indian economic shores.

Conducive economic platform

Earlier, even in the best of times, markets were never so fertile. With all the segments of IT doing well, the training industry could not have asked for a better economic climate. The nature of the training business is changing with time, and with the end-user segment getting knowledgeable, it has moved away from what you can offer to offering what the client wants. Re-skilling, which earlier was such a small component of the training industry, is today holding a large portion of the training industry pie. Consequently, the challenges involved in the business have force-multiplied making it purely a place for sharp- minded companies to exist and grow. Thus it is incumbent on companies to do their best in order to retain their competitive edge.

Paradigm shift

IT training at the individual as well as at corporate level, typically for updating skills, has witnessed a paradigm shift especially since the IT industry has revived. Never has there been such a strong focus on relevance of what is being learnt in the context of the industry requirements. Gone are the days when IT training organisations could lure learners by offering them career programmes covering everything in IT but missing out on industry-relevant technology—a key factor for facilitating the realisations of the career aspirations of the learners. Up-skilling the existing talent pool is perhaps one of the biggest challenges that companies are facing. This applies more in the IT context given the emergence of new technologies making the earlier ones either redundant or obsolete. To ensure that the content delivered by training vendors to their employees bridges the technology gap, organisations insist on the content being mapped to certification. This is the best possible way of ensuring the right content and delivery.

Co-existing segments

Within the IT training segment, the most prolific growth has been for software training, networking training and IT security training. The delivery capabilities required for catering to these three domains are different, and in some cases more challenging than the other. The beauty lies in the co-existence of all these segments along with the animation and hardware training segment. Software training and IT security training growth has been more on the re-skilling side while the networking training growth has been more on the student segment thus creating a huge pool of employable professionals. Freshers are being directly absorbed by companies and later on trained as per their projects and infrastructure—an interesting trend that is possibly here to stay and evolve with the growing Indian economy.

Certification— the new benchmark

Interestingly, international certifications are fast becoming a key parameter for both recruitment as well as future growth. In such competitive markets, where all professionals claim to be better than the other, a global benchmark from a neutral eye is essential in order to arrive at parity and the right choice. Global certifications provide the organisations with a tool to evaluate IT professionals. Little wonder then that the certification industry is equally growing like the training industry. Certifications help the HR fraternity to build transparency in the evaluation system within the organisation, typically providing a knowledge-oriented competitive workplace with the prestige and privileges associated with premier certifications and enhanced market value for professionals.

Academic aspirations of IT pros

Another interesting trend being observed in the increasingly competitive market is the thrust to obtain further education while performing current jobs. This has been seen in the reflection of the number of universities increasing their enrolments for post-graduation programmes. There have also been some good institutions setting up colleges exclusively to cater to the professional segment keen to obtain their post-graduation, PhD and so on through the distance education route. HR surveys have concluded that the new breed of professionals taking jobs are more planned in their careers than their predecessors. Their mental make-up is to learn while they earn, and subsequent to the qualifications being good, to jump for a substantially higher growth. Hence the paradigm has shifted from an annual outlook to 2 - 3 years planning and outlook.

In conclusion

Overall, the transition of India to becoming a knowledge-based economy is giving all the education companies a platform to display competencies. But like all growing economies, the weightage on services is high, and hence the margin of error in this business is getting narrow. Players in the unorganised sector shall find it difficult to sustain themselves, and this shall result in the IT training space being dominated by a few knowledgeable performers. As the famous management law states, the top few companies shall control around 80 percent of the market which is a good news for the IT industry, corporate world, and its stakeholders i.e students, franchisees, potential industry entrants and all of us. So it’s the best time to be part of this industry as a new entrant or as a new centre of an established brand.