KPO Experts India

While choosing an ideal firm or a company as an outsourcing partner, there are various important aspects which need to be ensured to choose both the associating agency and country. One of the key area to be ensured is the availability of required skilled and professional workforce. In this context, India as a chosen country gets priority over its competitors in not only the Asia but almost in respect of all the countries of the world.

 

Besides above, Indian software services industry strong value proposition of a large, English speaking, technically qualified manpower, competitive billing, high productivity gains and scalability - which had helped the country emerge as a key IT services outsourcing destination, continue to hold India in good stead. These intrinsic strengths and advantages gave India a leg up in the burgeoning KPO space as well, taking it beyond the realms of IT services.

 

The country is at an important juncture, having completed the transition from an agrarian economy to a fully-fledged world economy. A key element in taking the country forward and maintaining its growth momentum is the provision of a highly skilled and competent global workforce.

 

Having appropriate IT and management skills is assuming an ever-greater importance, and the IT sector is emerging as a major driver of the Indian economy. IT manpower development today, is not only crucial for sustaining the growth of the Indian economy, it is also important for maintaining the country’s edge in the global markets.

 

Growth of IT Professionals in India

The total number of IT and ITES professionals employed in India has grown from 284,000 in 1999-2000 to over 1 million in 2004-05, growing by over 200,000 in the last year alone.

 

Indian IT Sectors: Growth in Professionals

 

Source: NASSCOM

Break-up of Professionals in the IT industry

Most of the new entrants in the industry are fresh graduates indicating the availability of a large pool of fresh resources each year as against the siphoning off of resources from other industries. A break-up of the 10 lacs professionals in different sectors reflect that the number of employees in the IT segment has witnessed the highest levels of growth over the last few years. This growth is attributed to the tremendous growth in demand for these services in the IT sector. IT companies recruited approx. 1 lac professionals in 2004-05. In the IT software exports only, the It companies have recruited over 75,000 professionals in 2004-05, compared to 65,000 professionals recruited in 2003-04.

Indian IT  Sectors: Professionals Employed
	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Software Exports sector	170,000	205,000	270,000	345000
Software-domestic sector	22,000	25,000	28,000	30000
Software- in house captive staff	224,250	260,000	290,000	322000
ITES-BPO	106,000	180,000	253,500	348000
Total	522,250	670,000	841,500	1045,000

 

 

Supply pool of IT professionals

 

Indian IT sector: Labour Supply
(in '000s)	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06E	2006-07E
No. of Engineering Graduates	215	284	348	382
No. of IT (Computer Science, Electronics, Telecom) professionals	141	165	181	193
No. of IT professionals entering the workforce	80	94	103	109
No. of non-IT engineers entering the workforce	40	40	40	40
No. of graduates (other disciplines) entering the IT workforce	30	30	30	30
Total fresh IT labour supply	150	164	173	180

 

With India poised to be US$ 80 billion software market in 2010, providing direct employment to more than 2.2 million besides nearly twice the number by way of indirect employment, the need is to strengthen professional education through curricula, faculty, infrastructure, pedagogy improvements in line with the IT industry requirements. Also, there is need to further catalyze the interface between the academia and corporate/industry.

 

To take this forward, NASSCOM has been conducting annual HR Summit in Chennai for the past three years that witnesses the confluence of the IT industry and academia at one common platform. The summit’s aim to address some of the areas of concern from the industry and academia perspective such as solutions to company HR challenges, appointing and retaining the right talent, etc. NASSCOM launched the IT Workforce development initiative during the summit last year, to focus sharply on the creation and nurturing of the human resources, which provides the knowledge base or intellectual capital as India moves towards a knowledge economy.

 

Given the growing demand for skilled professionals, and the rapid changes in technology, there is an increasing need to keep the academia abreast of the skill set requirement of the industry. To meet this requirement, NASSCOM signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with University Grants Commission (UGC). As part of the MoU, NASSCOM and UGC will jointly undertake a Faculty Development Programme (FDP) for up-gradation of the skill-sets and knowledge base (in the area of emerging technologies, project management skills related to information technology) of the existing technical faculty in partnership with IT industry.