[Assam] Non-technical Skills in Indian IT Industry

[Dilip/Dil Deka]

It makes sense that some people in the Indian IT industry are thinking of the future and a more permanent and solid structure for the industry. Till now the industry has provided the technical manpower when called upon but it has not done much to remove the barriers that exist in doing the business. Based on personal experience, I can give an example. Our company has an office in Mumbai and we use their services in computer aided design regularly. We are very satisfied with their product quality. We regularly bring their employees to our Houston office at the start of a project to form the team and to establish the framework for the shared work. The frequent irritation is that it takes too long for the Indian nationals to get US visa even for a short business trip. Much of the blame goes to the US consulates in India but a better structured Indian  IT industry (with the non-technical people the article is talking about) could find ways to work with the consulates to make
 the visa process and travel less arduous. We are finding that the same process of travel from the Phillipines is  almost instantaneous.
   
  Dilip Deka
  =============================================================================
                         
                          function check()  {   if(document.frm.username.value=="")   {    alert("Please enter a user name")    document.frm.username.focus();    return false;    }   if(document.frm.password.value=="")   {    alert("Please enter a password")    document.frm.password.focus();    return false;    }  }                                    Support Independent Media!
Subscribe To India's Fastest Growing Weekly Newspaper Now               CHANNELS
           Cureent Affairs             Engaged Circle                       De-Classified             Edit -Opinion             Society & Lifestyle               Features               Bouquets & Bricks            Columns           Business & Economy           India           Vanity Fair           Archives
        People Power
Wanted: Your story
          
 THE SOUL OF THE BUSINESS
A PRIVATE   FAITH MADE DANGEROUSLY PUBLIC 
The Making of a Paper
 By SHOMA CHAUDHURY 
 In Gratitude
 By TARUN J TEJPAL
                    function addBookmark(title,url) {   if ( window.sidebar ) {   window.sidebar.addPanel(title, url,"");   } else if( document.all ) {   window.external.addFavorite( url, title);   } else if( window.opera & window.print ) {   return true;   }   }                     Business & Economy       
            SKILL DEVELOPMENT   LOOKING BEYOND PROJECT MANAGEMENT 
    The Indian IT industry must impart non-technical skills to employees to survive new global challenges, writes Rajdeep Sahrawat
  Today the Indian information technology (it) industry is enjoying strong growth cycles and double-digit growth rates are the norm rather than the exception. India-centric it outsourcing has had a paradigm shifting impact on the global it industry and become a mainstream it services model. On golf courses around the world, the question ‘Why India’ has rapidly metamorphosed to ‘Why not India’. 
  While the short-term prognosis is bullish, this rapid growth has set in motion some undercurrents, which pose a threat in the medium to long term. Firstly, Western it service firms who used to be bearish on the India-centric outsourcing model till the recent past, have embraced the India-centric model with great gusto and are developing a sizeable delivery capacity in India from both a people and process perspective. Secondly, the cost and quality arbitrage leveraged successfully by the Indian it industry will soon face the law of diminishing returns and the Indian it industry will have to identify new value propositions to retain its attractiveness. Finally, the aspiration of the Indian it industry to move up the value chain into high margin services and solutions will require them to operate with innovative and increasingly complex business models.
  To face these challenges in areas of traditional core competencies and identify new growth drivers, the Indian it industry will be required to move away from the tried and tested path and embark upon a transformation path .
  While there is little doubt that the Indian it industry has the intellectual capital to develop excellent strategies, a well-known management truism is ‘Strategy = Implementation’. Even a casual troll of management history will reveal that successful strategy implementation is largely predicated on the availability of required skills at all levels in the organisation. 
  Therefore, a key challenge facing the Indian it industry is whether it possesses the multi-disciplinary skills and capabilities required to implement complex strategies.
  Unfortunately, the answer is unlikely to be very positive. During the strong business cycles enjoyed by the Indian it industry, the focus has been on fulfilling customer demand. Irrespective of the scale and commercial value of the services, the typical engagement model is focussed on delivering what the customer has already decided. 
  As a consequence, the Indian it industry has developed worldclass project leaders and managers who have created an outstanding delivery track record. Over time these project managers have moved into general management and non-delivery-related roles in their organisations. They are often not prepared for these roles by way of educational background or organisational training and mentoring. The success probability of these individuals in non-delivery roles thus becomes a bit of a lottery and the organisation on the whole often tends to lose out.
  It will be a very rare Indian it organisation that has invested in developing non-delivery skills like sales, marketing, human resource (hr), finance, legal etc. The training curriculum in most it organisations is almost entirely focussed on developing technical and project management skills. 
  The it industry culture inherently promotes the focus on technology skills and the career path for employees not having an it delivery background often get curtailed. In fact the culture of technological superiority is so deeply ingrained that employees with non-technical backgrounds may feel somewhat neglected. 
  There’s yet another reason for the lack of non-it skills in the it industry. Relatively low number of people moving from other industries into the it industry. This is, probably, because the it industry is perceived as a ‘technology’-dominated industry with little career options for the non-technology diaspora. A significant drawback of this has been that the it industry has developed an ‘inside-out’ attitude and best practices from other industries have not been propagated within the it industry. 
  ibm’s remarkable turnaround from near disaster to remarkable success in the 1990s was led by a non-it careerist, Lou Gerstner. Gerstner drew upon his experiences of diverse organisations, including McKinsey, American Express and rjr Nabisco and led the transformation of ibm from a troubled technology-focussed organisation to a hugely successful global solution provider.
  A vast majority of the required skills are not it-specific. The essential fundamentals of such skills are common across industries. For example, Philip Kotler’s 4 Ps of Marketing will remain the same even if the implementation may differ on a case-by-case basis across industries. Similarly, the fundamental process of product lifecycle management will be similar for an aircraft engine or a banking software product. 
  As most of these skills are not available within the it industry, it needs to take bold steps to ‘skill-up’. The big question is whether an organisation can afford the luxury of waiting for an employee with an it delivery background to develop these skills on-the-job or source the expertise externally.
  While a comprehensive approach is required to address the skill shortcomings in a sustained manner, here are some pointers for an organisation to become multi-skill. 
  The skill gap needs to be assessed in the following ways:
  > As part of strategy preparation, identify the complete portfolio of skills needed to implement the strategy and when the skills are required. Develop detailed role profiles and assign a competency level to each skill rather than merely number of people.
  Turn to Page 20
  > Conduct a gap assessment of the internally available skills and the skills required. This exercise will also have another benefit, as the quantum of the skill gap will be an indicator about the success probability of the strategy being adopted. This gap assessment should not be a one-time exercise but repeated whenever the strategy implementation gets reviewed.
  Addressing the skill gap: 
  Addressing the skill gap will require different approaches to fulfil skills required immediately vis-à-vis skills required in the future. Different approaches are required to address the skill gap that can match skills required immediately vis-a-vis skills required in the future.
  > For critical skills required immediately, external sourcing is the only viable option. But sometimes, instead of sourcing from within the industry, the attempt should be to source required skills from where they are available as a core competency. It can be checked which sector has the skills needed as a part of its core competence. For example, the fast-moving consumer goods or automobile industries are good sources of marketing and product management skills.
  > For skills required in the medium term and long term, an attempt should be made to develop internal talent by identifying candidates from within the organisation. The key criterion for identifying the candidate should not be performance in the past but the aptitude to perform in the expected role. Rather than relying on subjective feedback, it is advisable to employ services of specialist aptitude assessment firms to conduct psychometric and other tests to identify the suitable candidates.
  Sustained skill development and attracting professionals for non-delivery roles is crucial. To achieve this, organisations need to:
  > Develop and highlight career paths for employees in non-it delivery roles.
  > Invest in training for non-technical skills. Such training should be integrated with the training mainstream rather than a set of ad hoc events. 
  > Highlight the importance of non-delivery activities in the success of the organisation. 
  > Mandate internal processes, which encourage a holistic business view and cross-function participation. For example, the team responsible for the launch of a new offering should have participation from marketing/legal/sales/finance from the start. 
  > Establish tie-ups with leading universities to offer non-technical courses to employees and encourage employees to undertake these courses. 
  The challenges facing the Indian it industry will require the development of a multi-skilled workforce as a prerequisite for sustained success. While delivery excellence will continue to be a core competency, the it industry also needs to develop non-it delivery skills by nurturing internal talent and encouraging professionals and experts from other industries. 
  Sahrawat is Vice-president, nasscom. 
These are personal views 
  

      Oct 14 , 2006

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.assamnet.org/pipermail/assam-assamnet.org/attachments/20061007/e64d1b55/attachment.htm>