Copyright@kamleshsujata1
IT party is over. Now’s the time to reinvent or die
India requires 12 million jobs
a year. But very few know where it’ll come from. This article “IT party is
over. Now’s time to reinvent or die” by Ravi Venkatesan makes some valid points
such as:
- - Automation
can displace a third of all jobs within three years.
- - Infosys CEO
aims at increasing revenue per employee by 50%.
- - New
technologies are destroying old jobs but creating many new ones.
- - Whatever
skills we have will largely be irrelevant in a decade and all qualifications
have a shelf life.
- - The future
will not be kind to people who are not curious and no interest in reading and
learning.
- - Indian
youth largely needs to move into an entrepreneurial drive when jobs are scarce.
IT party is over. Now’s the time to reinvent or die
By invitation- Ravi Venkatesan
Former chairman- Microsoft India
TOI 31.5.15
India’s IT industry is
unlikely to remain the amazing job engine that it has been. For the past two
decades, the fastest way to increase your income has been to land a job with an
IT company. The industry has provided a ticket to prosperity for millions of
young Indians; children of security guards, drivers, peons and cooks catapulted
themselves and their families firmly into the middle class in a single
generation by landing a job in a BPO. Hundreds of engineering colleges
mushroomed overnight churning out over a million graduates a year to feed the
insatiable demand of India’s IT factories.
This party is coming to an end. A combination
of slowing demand, rising competition and technological change means that
companies will hire far fewer people. And this is not a temporary blip—this is
the new normal. Wipro’s CEO has bravely admitted that automation can displace a
third of all jobs within three years while Infosys CEO Sikka aims to increase
revenue per employee by 50%. Even Nasscom, the chronically optimistic industry
association, admits that companies will hire far fewer people. Not only will
the lines of new graduates waiting for job offers grow rapidly longer every
year, but so too will the lines of the newly unemployed as all companies focus
more on utilization, employee productivity and performance. Employees doing
tasks that can be automated, the armies of middle managers who supervise them
and all those with mediocre performance reviews and without hot skills are
living on borrowed time.
So what do you do if you are a member of
these endangered species? What constitutes good career advice in these times? I’d
say that the first thing is to embrace reality and recognize that the same has
changed for good. The worst thing to do is be wishful and wait for the good times
to return. They won’t. But there are still lots of opportunities. What’s
happening in the industry is ‘creative destruction.’ New technologies are
destroying old jobs but creating many new ones. There is an insatiable demand
for developers of mobile and web applications. For data engineers and
scientists. For cyber security expertise. So for anyone who is quick learner,
anyone with real expertise, there will be abundant opportunities.
There has also never been a better time for
anyone with an iota of entrepreneurial instinct. India is still a supply
constrained economy and so there is room to start every kind of business:
beauty parlour, bakery, catering, car-washing, mobile/ electronics repair,
laundry, housekeeping, tailoring. For entrepreneurs with a social conscience,
there is a massive need for social enterprises that deliver affordable
healthcare, education and financial services. Not only are there abundant
opportunities but startups are “in” and there is no shame at all in failure. The
ranks of angel investors are swelling and it has never been so easy to get funded.
There is even a website, www.deasra.in that
provides step-by-step instructions to would-be entrepreneurs.
For those who prefer a good old fashioned
job, there are abundant jobs in old economy companies which are struggling to
find every kind of talent—accountants, manufacturing and service engineers,
sales reps. Technology is enabling the emergence of a new sharing ‘sharing
services’ such as Uber or Ola that enable lucrative self-employment; it is not
uncommon to find cab drivers who make Rs 30,000-40,000 a month.
My main point should be clear. While India
may have a big challenge overall in creating enough jobs for its youthful population,
at the individual level there is no shortage of opportunities. The most
important thing is a positive attitude. The IT boom was a tide that lifted all
boats—even the most mediocre ones. However, this has bred an entitlement
mentality and a lot of mediocrity. To prosper in the new world, two things will
really matter. The first is the right attitude. This means a hunger to succeed.
Being proactive in seeking opportunities, not waiting either till you are fired
or for something to drop into your lap. A willingness to take risk and the
tenacity to work hard and make something a success. Humility. Frugality. The second
is the ability to try and learn new things. The rate of change in our world is
astonishing; whatever skills we have will largely be irrelevant in a decade. People
are also living much longer. So the ability to learn new things, develop new
competencies and periodically reinvent ourselves is a crucial one. Sadly, too
many of us have no curiosity and no interest and no interest in reading and
learning. The future will not be kind to such people.
“The snake which cannot cast its skin has
to die.” –Friedrich Nietzsche.
