IT : Sona Badhano Nordoma

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgzqq5dw_10cj5zn2

This is an article in leading Bengali news paper Anandabazar patrika regarding IT industry in kolkata.

Its says : IT industry is not for good students. May be, the average salary and abroad scope is better, but not good enough to consume the talent pool of Bengal. Its not like a rocket science or hify technology, just a white colour consulting job. Body shopping is nothing but playing with a person, selling him to customers. IT as a whole brought some equality in educated society.

My Comments: I don't agree with all points, rather disagree major points. May be general people do not have enough idea about our industry and nature of job. Its not that easy like a call center job, neither monotonous like govt jobs(like officers or teachers). Regarding value addition, I must say IT consultants are the ambassador of today's India to the World, contributing hugely in economic growth, creating more job and is playing an important role for the betterment of the society.

I have a discussion with Ananda Niyogi and here is our common understanding :

Before writing this idealistic stuff, the writer should have known the reality. We agree that some of the operating jobs in service industry is so simple that it can be done by a 12 pass student, but there are some developments, which probably can no one do, not even the IITians in general.

Regarding the talent flow coming to IT from different streams, whether it is science or engineering - in our opinion, only about 5% are actually brilliant - and by brilliant i mean creative, not gaatu (studious) brilliant. It varies in percentage, may be more in IITs and less in social science, but we must have to admit that not everybody is genius and JEE rank never proves it. Brilliant 5% never comes in this industry - they used to go for masters in US, or do research in their streams. Average engineer finally lands a job, mainly in IT irrespective of departments.


We agree that IT is more of a service industry now and even companies like IBM, SAP, Accenture are trying to do service works to different clients along with the Indian giants TCS, Wipro, Infy. now let me take you back 10 years. Average JU Engineers used to try for a job in IPCL / BPCL and govt sector or like L&T or something like that in private sector, with hardcore industry ; whereas, a simple graduate, 10 yrs ago - what does he do? Sit in rock for gossips and try for miscellaneous job...like salesman, medical representative / govt clerk (if he gets lucky). Now, JU engineer also in IBM...BA pass also in IBM (if not at least in IBM Daksh). So this is what people call - value for merit.

IPCL / BPCL / L&T / TATA / ITC - whatever, by doing a traditional job - where average JU engineers actually adding a lot of value to society? Where they doing normal repetitive jobs, how much scope did he have to think independently? After few years they became manager, same as in IT. We became manager and handle our teams. So where is the difference? Is it a brain drain!! We don’t think so, as in IT there is at least some innovating brain storming work.

So, if now a simple graduate works for call centre, what is our problem? Society is improving as there are more jobs, people are getting richer, the average expenditure has gone up and industry is growing with the market. Eventually our economy is going up. India had 3.5% GDP growth rate in 1990, whereas today it has 10% GDP growth rate. With the growing economy more jobs will be created. It’s a cycle. So it is definitely a value addition to society.

Now, let’s discuss personal growth. Barring 5% (`appx) brilliant talent pool, the existing resources have many more things to achieve, which we can not do in hardcore jobs or in govt sectors. At the age of 28 you are sitting in a foreign location where people respect you for your skill & knowledge, and you are giving presentation, selling ideas, negotiating and so on. We are quite mature as because we had that exposure at a young age. We may not be doing rocket science - but we r not sitting in a IPCL Plant control room and monitoring the control screen as well, however there are scopes for doing more complex works in different technologies of computer science.

At this age, one is leading 10/20/30 people (all of them are consultants) - which other industry can give me that scope. May be the social status is not like teachers or doctors, but satisfaction level is very high if you are good performer, so talent matters. It’s not like all small boxes looking like same :-)

We may not have people touching my feet at like doctors, but we feel proud when we stand in front of 50 people from 10 countries and deliver a presentation. When they listen to us, when we connect with them, when we can convince them - that gives us a kick. we are ambassador of today's India.
Regarding the body shopping, if Beckham,Ronaldo can be hired and rented to some clubs from the original one, what is the problem with us? If we are selling our knowledge and gaining more knowledge by a contract of body shopping, then I must say that it’s good learning opportunity for young IT consultants as well as a golden opportunity to make money.

The writer must have to realize that computer is not a mechanical device with gives output just by pressing some keys; neither is it a robot that instructs us. For a normal engineer, definitely it is a dream job as the salary is high, onsite opportunity is better, one can use his innovative skills, the value for talent and knowledge is there, the challenge is there, the growth is immense what more do we expect from an Industry? The final proof is that in kolkata lot more people have jobs and that is the bottom-line.
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Kuntal(Dey) , Amritava(Bubai), Aritra(Santu) thanks for your comment. Appreciate your thoughts.
What do you think, please put a comment.

IT industry in Kolkata, India

With sky rise building and blue glasses, glowing lights and nice cubicles in AC, client meeting and con calls, onshore and offshore support, the IT industry is undoubtedly the main haunting job for the young graduate engineers. The revolution in technology and the ever-growing demand of resources worldwide, IT industry in India is growing intrinsically, especially in Bengal. I can very well remember the days 6 or 7 years back, when small IT companies are slowing expending their wings in Calcutta, starting the outsourcing and support projects in sector V, Salt Lake. It has changed quite rapidly during last few years, and taking a shape of a stable industry, maturing and stabilizing with the warmth of globalization.

It’s very different from the normal core industries, the hardcore job and doing the repetitive work by managing stuffs. However the real life challenge and understanding the business, gaining industry knowledge is always there in core industry. Some of the Business Functional Consultants in IT industry has valuable domain experience in core industry. But still I think the nature of job and growth is quite different in IT industry as of now. The Growth is not position wise, rather to know the bigger world, to know how different industry works in various countries, automate them through IT and harvesting different knowledge in SAP, JAVA, Oracle, Microsoft Tech and thousands of different of new products and packages and languages. The growth in terms of designing a Interface for particular customer, programming in a modular and efficient way, and supporting them to meet ever changing customer need to automate their business. Obviously one can feel that he is living in a global village, by providing solution to customer to enhance their business through his consulting skills. So in IT one is directly connected to the rest of the world, contributing to the Global Information Technology revolution "To leverage information, knowledge and technology to enhance human endeavor."

Thus for an Engineer with good aptitude and a sense of computer programming is quite suitable candidate in today’s IT industry, good communication skills being an additional advantage. To be an onshore client facing consultant, one should have very basic knowledge of the technology and obviously be a good communication skill to make better relationship with the customer, to understand their needs and fulfill the demands accordingly to provide highest client satisfaction. One can leverage his skills with his growth in the industry and be a better communicator once the opportunities come. So, all together this is a good learning curve for a freshers as well as for the lateral entries.

Another better aspect is to know the world, crossing the boundaries, working together with people from different countries, in different languages and technologies. This obviously gives a better idea about the work culture, work environment of different society and form a broader mindset for the Consultants. IT has made the World a Global Village and design-support IT from remote location makes us feeling locally global.

Once I was going thorough an article on reverse colonization. In past the western invaders had made their colony across the world, especially in the third world countries, ruled for the centuries. It’s their Power and aggression led them to rule other part of the world including India. But with the innovation of IT Industry, now it’s a reverse colonization, Indians are moving across the Globe to implement and design the IT infrastructure of different industry across the Globe, including fortune 500 companies.
Slowly the centre of gravity of the Silicon Valley is moving from US to India and this is not only because of low cost, but also for the high efficiency of Indian IT professionals enriched with updated skill set. It is a slow revolution in our country, including China. Our knowledgebase, awareness and availability of resources can make potential growth in near future.

The improving points :

Product Industry: In big Indian firm, we usually do package oriented work and hardly few of them are working to develop new software products. In fact looking into the current market all the products are either US or Europe based, and Indian IT consultants are learning it, using it, and implementing it by configurations or customizations (writing some additional programs). So, even though we are working, the main profit share is going to the companies who have product copy write.

Long term vision: Most of the small and mediem IT firms and IT consyltants do not have long term vision for growth. Even though we plan for it, there is not much of execution and tracking for meeting our deadlines. Its now a responsibility of every IT consultants to plan for themselves as well as for their organization to excel Indian IT industry.

Current market share: May be we are earning good amount of money for "IT outsourcing to India", our country is much behind in terms of Global Market Share. This is not even 5% of todays IT World. This needs improvement, so that huge resource pool and skilled labour in India is properly utilized to earn more global market profit.

The Government policy: Some of our politicians have opposed the growth of IT industry in different way, be it calling Bandh, or being indifferent to the future growth. Even now current govt is encouraging the controversial 50% reservation in leading engineering and IT colleges. But politicians hardly have any time to think of policies regarding IT growth.