>IT sector in need of hands in all domains: Infosys CEO

>The IT sector is presently recruiting at a strong clip, with a demand for skills in multiple verticals, according to Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO and MD of Infosys. Ahead of expansion plans for the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala (IIITM-K) here of which he is chariman, Gopalakrishnan told ET that his company had already made 25,000 offers during this financial year. “We have made 25,000 offers in campuses this financial year, and our plans for the coming year will be disclosed in April,” he said, adding that there was a strong demand across various disciplines in the IT sector.

The IIITM-K is setting up a residential campus at the Technocity here, focusing on high power computing and information system management. IIITM-K’s Director-in-charge, Elizabeth Sherly said courses had been designed with the congruence of academics, research and industry requirements in mind. She said the 10-acre campus for IIITM-K in the Technocity campus would help the institute raise itself to a higher level, with the student capacity also moving up from the present level of 120 post graduate students to about 700 students pursuing Masters, M.Phil. and Ph.D. programmes.

The institute is proposing to launch four new schools in its new campus, namely schools for computer science and engineering, computational science, informatics, and humanities and social sciences. Sherly said inter-disciplinary education was a key area of focus, enabling students to tune their skills to contextual requirements.

Source: The Economic Times, February 16, 2011

>US varsity ties up with Pune-based B-school

>The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS), one of the state universities in the US, has entered into a formal tie-up with the city-based Europe Asia Business School (EABS) and academic service provider Global Talent Track (GTT) for setting up a centre for services excellence that will offer advanced study programmes in the infotech (IT) and management fields.

The EABS, which has campuses in Pune and Mumbai, was founded by Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar Technologies and Chairman of the CII’s IT and ITeS committee. While the GTT, which specialises in training students on vocational skills that will help them get ready for the industry jobs, is headed by Uma Ganesh.

As part of the tripartite arrangement, the centre for services excellence will conduct research as well as offer multi-disciplinary academic programmes in India, starting with an advanced programme in information assurance leading to a masters in engineering from the UCCS and a certificate programme in services marketing.

According to Uma Ganesh, “This collaboration promises a much-needed global education experience for students, bringing together the best of the academia and the industry of the two nations.” Ganesh said, “The UCCS has some of the most relevant programmes in IT and Management and also an outstanding programme taught through blended learning for healthcare and nursing and through our new global connect initiative. These are the first of several planned courses that we look forward to customising and offering, via the centre, to cater to the huge needs in India and Asia.”

The information assurance programme will be conducted at the EABS’ campus at Vimannagar, while the services marketing programme will be conducted at the Advanced Technology Laboratory near Wadia college, said a GTT spokesperson on Monday. The two new academic programmes will be launched from the academic year 2011-12. The UCCS has provided the academic backup for these programmes in terms of designing the course and faculty training, among other things.

Both the courses have been designed specifically keeping in mind the factors like India’s growing economy and the projected growth of sectors related to business, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare and media. These sectors are expected to create over 40 lakh jobs within the next two years. On the other hand, information security and IT risk have emerged as key concerns with the growing IT penetration across the country. Successful participation of the advanced programme offered in India will lead to a masters degree in information assurance, which is offered by the UCCS. The services marketing programme will also enable students to get fee waivers for the fully accredited MBA offered by the UCCS at its campus in Colorado Springs.

Source: The Times of India, February 15, 2011

InfoTech attraction wanes: 1,000 institutes want to stop IT course

About a decade ago ,engineering colleges across the country were falling over one another to pitch their information technology (IT) departments. Students queued up and companies lapped up virtually every graduate, making the new millennium the golden age for IT professionals.

In stark contrast today, a number of colleges are in the process of downing the shutters on their IT departments. According to startling data sourced from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the overseeing body for professional technical education, one in every three institutes offering this course has sent in an application seeking to close it. “Close to 1,000 institutes have applied to AICTE to either close down their IT departments or convert the seats allotted for this to another discipline like mechanical or civil engineering,” said AICTE Chairman S. S. Mantha.

Taken aback by the number of requests for closure, AICTE turned them all down and asked colleges to go to their respective state governments, get a no-objection certificate (NOC) and supplement it with their application. “Shutting down so many IT departments would have led to a skewed growth of other streams,” added Mantha. Finally, only around six colleges managed to get an NOC from their affiliating university and state government. However, almost every institute plans on filing a closure application again for the 2011 academic session bringing the IT revolution to a pause if not a full stop.

While most colleges reasoned that this was a necessity, given the tough times they were facing, a mass closure of IT departments will translate into several other issues. What happens, for instance, to the hundreds of faculty teaching IT as well as the infrastructure set up for this stream. Experts were of the opinion that whatever the reasons for the decline in popularity of the IT stream, it was vital for technical education to advance in a scientific rather than whimsical manner.

Source: The Times of India, December 10, 2010

IT companies hire non-techies, cut costs

New frontiers are being explored and barriers broken. The information technology space is opening up for non-engineers, even as IT graduates find a new calling in the lucrative pharma and biotech industries. When Ishwar Prasad graduated from a Mysore college two years ago with specialisation in commerce, a career with one of Indias top three technology firms was nowhere on the agenda. However, Prasad went on to do a six-month diploma in computer hardware management last year and is now helping some of the leading telecom companies in the world manage their computer desktops and other infrastructure, from a remote infrastructure management centre at the tech firm. As tech firms automate their commoditised service offerings, they do not necessarily need engineers to perform all tasks. Instead, they are increasingly hiring non-engineering graduates such as Prasad for testing software applications and managing computer infrastructure of their clients in order to do more with fewer staff and at lower wages than computer engineers.

From nearly 10% of their current workforce, non-engineering graduates could account for nearly 20-25 % of the staff at companies such as TCS, Wipro and HCL, over the next one to two years. Multinational rival Cognizant already has almost 20% of its global workforce who are nonengineering graduates. Prasad is among thousands of non-engineering graduates being hired by companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL and Infosys for performing highly automated tasks of software testing and computer infrastructure management with the help of user-friendly, readymade platforms that can serve multiple customers. In my hometown, working for Infosys or Wipro makes parents proud. I could have never got into such companies with a commerce degree, but now many of my relatives think I have made it big and become a software engineer, says the 27-year-old. Companies such as Wipro are already readying their strategies for shifting nearly 40% of software services to readymade templates that can serve additional customers without having to hire incremental staff.

The prime impact of these delivery models is the asset-based view as opposed to a labourbased one, that is, less number of people for the same work and an increase in operating margins per employee, while simultaneously reducing capital expenditure for their clients. The impact on employee mix (those with a BE degree vis-a-vis non-BEs) will be there but will not be applicable for all technologies and domain areas, said Saurabh Govil, Senior Vice President HR, Wipro Technologies.

For years, India’s $50-billion software exports industry has been hiring thousands of engineering graduates every year for writing software codes and processing back office tasks for top customers such as General Electric, Citibank and JP Morgan Chase. However, increasing wage inflation and rising attrition has forced them to seek ways to arrest linear growth. The skill mix today is different from a few years ago because of a fundamental shift in sourcing behaviour customers sourcing a broader range of services, including BPO/KPO, testing and IT Infrastructure Services (ITIS), said Shankar Srinivasan, Chief People Officer, Cognizant. While for the generic skill sets we hire graduates in science, humanities and commerce, for specialised areas we hire chartered accountants, statisticians, equity research analysts, lawyers, doctors, dentists, pharmacists and so on, he added.

If we are able to move a substantial chunk of our business to platform-based models that can be operated by non-engineering graduates with some familiarisation, we can lower our salary costs and even balance attrition, said the chief executive of one of the top Indian tech firms,requesting anonymity. Indeed, most of the entry-level computer science graduates are paid anywhere between Rs. 200,000 and Rs. 500,000 per annum by these software companies when they join, and with wage inflation of around 10% every year, the salary costs keep going up. If we can have 20-30% of our workforce from different backgrounds, it will help balance the equation and force traditional software engineers to think beyond pure code writing roles, the chief executive quoted earlier added.

Already, with companies moving to performance-linked billing models, wherein they are paid based on business results achieved and not on the effort put in, there is a need for software engineers to graduate to the next level. Clearly, India’s code-jockeys need to evolve and manage more complex, closely linked with business kind of roles. People skills are always core in our business but the platform will automate mundane/repetitive tasks and provide workflow automation which will free up the engineers to focus on higher-end value addition work, says Piyush Dutt, Associate Vice President & Head-HR, HCL Technologies infrastructure services division.

Source: The Economic Times, March 19, 2010

IT companies hire non-techies, cut costs

New frontiers are being explored and barriers broken. The information technology space is opening up for non-engineers, even as IT graduates find a new calling in the lucrative pharma and biotech industries. When Ishwar Prasad graduated from a Mysore college two years ago with specialisation in commerce, a career with one of Indias top three technology firms was nowhere on the agenda. However, Prasad went on to do a six-month diploma in computer hardware management last year and is now helping some of the leading telecom companies in the world manage their computer desktops and other infrastructure, from a remote infrastructure management centre at the tech firm. As tech firms automate their commoditised service offerings, they do not necessarily need engineers to perform all tasks. Instead, they are increasingly hiring non-engineering graduates such as Prasad for testing software applications and managing computer infrastructure of their clients in order to do more with fewer staff and at lower wages than computer engineers.

From nearly 10% of their current workforce, non-engineering graduates could account for nearly 20-25 % of the staff at companies such as TCS, Wipro and HCL, over the next one to two years. Multinational rival Cognizant already has almost 20% of its global workforce who are nonengineering graduates. Prasad is among thousands of non-engineering graduates being hired by companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL and Infosys for performing highly automated tasks of software testing and computer infrastructure management with the help of user-friendly, readymade platforms that can serve multiple customers. In my hometown, working for Infosys or Wipro makes parents proud. I could have never got into such companies with a commerce degree, but now many of my relatives think I have made it big and become a software engineer, says the 27-year-old. Companies such as Wipro are already readying their strategies for shifting nearly 40% of software services to readymade templates that can serve additional customers without having to hire incremental staff.

The prime impact of these delivery models is the asset-based view as opposed to a labourbased one, that is, less number of people for the same work and an increase in operating margins per employee, while simultaneously reducing capital expenditure for their clients. The impact on employee mix (those with a BE degree vis-a-vis non-BEs) will be there but will not be applicable for all technologies and domain areas, said Saurabh Govil, Senior Vice President HR, Wipro Technologies.

For years, India’s $50-billion software exports industry has been hiring thousands of engineering graduates every year for writing software codes and processing back office tasks for top customers such as General Electric, Citibank and JP Morgan Chase. However, increasing wage inflation and rising attrition has forced them to seek ways to arrest linear growth. The skill mix today is different from a few years ago because of a fundamental shift in sourcing behaviour customers sourcing a broader range of services, including BPO/KPO, testing and IT Infrastructure Services (ITIS), said Shankar Srinivasan, Chief People Officer, Cognizant. While for the generic skill sets we hire graduates in science, humanities and commerce, for specialised areas we hire chartered accountants, statisticians, equity research analysts, lawyers, doctors, dentists, pharmacists and so on, he added.

If we are able to move a substantial chunk of our business to platform-based models that can be operated by non-engineering graduates with some familiarisation, we can lower our salary costs and even balance attrition, said the chief executive of one of the top Indian tech firms,requesting anonymity. Indeed, most of the entry-level computer science graduates are paid anywhere between Rs. 200,000 and Rs. 500,000 per annum by these software companies when they join, and with wage inflation of around 10% every year, the salary costs keep going up. If we can have 20-30% of our workforce from different backgrounds, it will help balance the equation and force traditional software engineers to think beyond pure code writing roles, the chief executive quoted earlier added.

Already, with companies moving to performance-linked billing models, wherein they are paid based on business results achieved and not on the effort put in, there is a need for software engineers to graduate to the next level. Clearly, India’s code-jockeys need to evolve and manage more complex, closely linked with business kind of roles. People skills are always core in our business but the platform will automate mundane/repetitive tasks and provide workflow automation which will free up the engineers to focus on higher-end value addition work, says Piyush Dutt, Associate Vice President & Head-HR, HCL Technologies infrastructure services division.

Source: The Economic Times, March 19, 2010

MCA programs out of date in high-tech world

Asish Tilak, a software programmer with Jindal Saw, says his job is an art thats slowly fading out. He sees fewer students with the wherewithal for programming the once-coveted MCA, or master of computer applications course apply for interviews these days. The three-year degree course has been upstaged by shortterm , job-oriented certifications in an uncertain economic climate. Students these days opt for short-term certification programmes like .Net, Oracle or Cisco which provide good jobs, he says.

Software programmers are also being edged out by professionals with engineering degrees, as outsourcing work gets more complex. The global economic slowdown saw most multinational companies cut down their IT spends, and this seems to have taken away some sheen from the MCA degree. At the same time, a sharp increase in the number of engineering colleges in the country has given students a wider choice in the form of a BTech or a BE degree, which are preferred by employers. A candidate with an MCA degree might be good with programming, but when it comes to design and technical know-how, he is in a disadvantageous position compared to a BE or a B Tech degree holder, says Pradeep Bahirwani, VP, Talent Acquisition, Wipro.

In such an environment, fewer students are applying for the MCA entrace test every year. Nearly 9,276 students took the entrance test in 2009, while 10,398 students had taken it in 2008. Universities and institutes across the country are also witnessing dwindling interest in the course. There were just 29 takers for the 39 seats on offer last year at the New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University, whose MCA course is considered among the best in the country.
At the National Institutes of Technology or NITs, 6,504 students appeared for the combined entrance exam in 2009, compared to 8,223 in 2008. Of the 20 NITs spread across the country, 11 offer the MCA programme, with 766 seats in all. The top three NITs secured 30% of the students the one in Tiruchirappalli, followed by Motilal Nehru NIT, Allahabad and NIT Warangal.

Sonajharia Minz, Dean, School of Computers and Systems Sciences at JNU and Krishna Kant, Professor at the Computer Science and Engineering Department of the Motilal Nehru NIT blame the economic recession for the slump in interest among students. Students are opting for MBA or other courses, as the IT industry has borne the brunt of the recession, says Prof. Kant. Another reason for the course losing its appeal is the transformation of software work in India from back-office outsourcing to the more complex high-end outsourcing. One finds more product development and hardcore technical jobs being outsourced compared to plain software testing earlier, explains Srivas Ramgopal, who works with a subsidiary of Tata Communications. As a result, companies prefer to hire people with engineering backgrounds rather than those with simple programming knowledge.

Though the worlds economies are showing signs of improvement, the interest levels in MCA are not likely to revive soon. Instead of a 3-year program, MCA should be made a two-year program to make it competitive vis-a-vis the BTech program. The industry considers an MCA degree equivalent to a BTech one, whereas one takes longer to finish the MCA, says ARKS Srinivas, Director, TIME Mumbai, a private coaching institute .

A similar trend is being replicated in colleges across Maharashtra. The occupancy rate is witnessing a sharp fall. In 2009, 5,369 candidates were admitted for 6,988 seats available across 114 colleges in the State. So, about 77% of the seats were filled up in 2009, compared to 89% of the seats in 2008. Some 5,289 candidates opted for the program from a pool of 5,908 seats in 2008. It must be noted that of the 114 colleges, 45 are under Pune University, which is one of the top universities for MCA. Lack of placement facilities and presence of institutes in remote areas could be the reasons for such a bad show, said an official from the Directorate of Technical Education of Maharashtra.

Srinivas said that MCA as a business vertical is losing out due to fall in number of students. Some 4,500 students will write the Integrated Common Entrance Test for MBA and MCA in Andhra Pradesh this year, whereas, previous about 6,500 students wrote the test for 60 seats, said Srinivas. However, the colleges offering MCA degree are considering to increase the number of seats. For instance, JNU will be offering 46 seats in this school year. Number of seats in Maharashtra could be risen by up to 20% this year. Seats in various NITs are also on the rise.

Source: The Economic Times, February 17,2010 (Reported by Dibyajyoti Chatterjee)

MCA programs out of date in high-tech world

Asish Tilak, a software programmer with Jindal Saw, says his job is an art thats slowly fading out. He sees fewer students with the wherewithal for programming the once-coveted MCA, or master of computer applications course apply for interviews these days. The three-year degree course has been upstaged by shortterm , job-oriented certifications in an uncertain economic climate. Students these days opt for short-term certification programmes like .Net, Oracle or Cisco which provide good jobs, he says.

Software programmers are also being edged out by professionals with engineering degrees, as outsourcing work gets more complex. The global economic slowdown saw most multinational companies cut down their IT spends, and this seems to have taken away some sheen from the MCA degree. At the same time, a sharp increase in the number of engineering colleges in the country has given students a wider choice in the form of a BTech or a BE degree, which are preferred by employers. A candidate with an MCA degree might be good with programming, but when it comes to design and technical know-how, he is in a disadvantageous position compared to a BE or a B Tech degree holder, says Pradeep Bahirwani, VP, Talent Acquisition, Wipro.

In such an environment, fewer students are applying for the MCA entrace test every year. Nearly 9,276 students took the entrance test in 2009, while 10,398 students had taken it in 2008. Universities and institutes across the country are also witnessing dwindling interest in the course. There were just 29 takers for the 39 seats on offer last year at the New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University, whose MCA course is considered among the best in the country.
At the National Institutes of Technology or NITs, 6,504 students appeared for the combined entrance exam in 2009, compared to 8,223 in 2008. Of the 20 NITs spread across the country, 11 offer the MCA programme, with 766 seats in all. The top three NITs secured 30% of the students the one in Tiruchirappalli, followed by Motilal Nehru NIT, Allahabad and NIT Warangal.

Sonajharia Minz, Dean, School of Computers and Systems Sciences at JNU and Krishna Kant, Professor at the Computer Science and Engineering Department of the Motilal Nehru NIT blame the economic recession for the slump in interest among students. Students are opting for MBA or other courses, as the IT industry has borne the brunt of the recession, says Prof. Kant. Another reason for the course losing its appeal is the transformation of software work in India from back-office outsourcing to the more complex high-end outsourcing. One finds more product development and hardcore technical jobs being outsourced compared to plain software testing earlier, explains Srivas Ramgopal, who works with a subsidiary of Tata Communications. As a result, companies prefer to hire people with engineering backgrounds rather than those with simple programming knowledge.

Though the worlds economies are showing signs of improvement, the interest levels in MCA are not likely to revive soon. Instead of a 3-year program, MCA should be made a two-year program to make it competitive vis-a-vis the BTech program. The industry considers an MCA degree equivalent to a BTech one, whereas one takes longer to finish the MCA, says ARKS Srinivas, Director, TIME Mumbai, a private coaching institute .

A similar trend is being replicated in colleges across Maharashtra. The occupancy rate is witnessing a sharp fall. In 2009, 5,369 candidates were admitted for 6,988 seats available across 114 colleges in the State. So, about 77% of the seats were filled up in 2009, compared to 89% of the seats in 2008. Some 5,289 candidates opted for the program from a pool of 5,908 seats in 2008. It must be noted that of the 114 colleges, 45 are under Pune University, which is one of the top universities for MCA. Lack of placement facilities and presence of institutes in remote areas could be the reasons for such a bad show, said an official from the Directorate of Technical Education of Maharashtra.

Srinivas said that MCA as a business vertical is losing out due to fall in number of students. Some 4,500 students will write the Integrated Common Entrance Test for MBA and MCA in Andhra Pradesh this year, whereas, previous about 6,500 students wrote the test for 60 seats, said Srinivas. However, the colleges offering MCA degree are considering to increase the number of seats. For instance, JNU will be offering 46 seats in this school year. Number of seats in Maharashtra could be risen by up to 20% this year. Seats in various NITs are also on the rise.

Source: The Economic Times, February 17,2010 (Reported by Dibyajyoti Chatterjee)