80,000 engineers to be absorbed in IT sector by 2010

Software industry body, Nasscom expects at least 70,000-80,000 engineering graduates who passed out in June 2009 and were offered jobs in their 5th and 6th semesters by TCS, Infosys and Accenture, among others, to get absorbed by March 2010. Not too long ago, there were apprehensions that the appointments of these tech grads could get deferred till 2011 in the aftermath of the global slowdown. However, the perception appears to have changed.

Speaking to the media, Nasscom Vice-President Sangeeta Gupta said, "There's some amount of pick-up in IT spending and clients have become active in the decision-making process. This augurs well for the IT industry and is likely to result in hiring by IT companies. Companies like TCS, Infosys and Accenture, among others, are expected to start honouring the offers they made. As a result, at least 70k-80k engineering graduates, who were issued offer letters, are expected to get absorbed by March 2010."

For instance, the country's biggest software firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had made some 24,000 offers in 2008-09, according to its Q2 analyst call. The company had indicated that it would honour these offers this fiscal. In Q3, TCS is expected to absorb about 8,000-odd, and the balance, in the following quarter. Till Q2, the company had absorbed some 1,800 people.

Similarly, Infosys, in its Q2 earnings call, indicated that it would add 20,000 people instead of 18,000 indicated earlier. The additional 2,000 would be partly in BPO while the rest would make up laterals at Infosys Technologies.

Incidentally, Nasscom has urged member companies to recruit those who've completed their eighth semester to ensure that hiring is closer to the need of companies. For this fiscal, Nasscom has projected a mere 4-7 percent export growth. It is likely, that with IT sector showing signs of recovery, Nasscom will review the export target. "We can review the export target by end- December," she added.

McKinsey in its report titled 'Perspectives in the IT industry by 2020', has noted that with the current pace of reforms and expected constraints in talent and infrastructure supply, the exports component of the Indian IT industry is slated to reach $175 billion in revenues by 2020. The domestic component will contribute $50 billion in revenues by 2020, which is larger than the total export revenues for India now.

Agencies

Has Wipro set up new consulting R&D arm?

Technology major Wipro is planning a deep plunge into the global consulting market with the idea of competing with true-blue global consulting brands and IT consulting firms.

In preparation for this move, the company has carried out an in-depth study on select consulting majors including Ernst & Young, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, McKinsey and Bain & Company to understand what made them stay different in the consulting world.

Anurag Srivastava, head of Wipro Consulting Services (WCS) said, "The objective of the study was to gather a holistic understanding of the consulting business. We want to create differentiation in the global markets through innovation-driven consulting. Consulting will be the front-end service for most of our large business deals.''

Wipro has also set up a dedicated research and development arm, Global Research Centre, to support its initiatives in the consulting space. The R&D facility will seek to enhance the business value to clients through innovation. The company believes that consulting will work as a powerful tool during times of recession to gain customer confidence.

Wipro employs over 1,200 consulting professionals and 7% of them will now be part of the R&D team. The team will track 12 industry verticals. The research activity starts with profiling the customer, moves on to analysing industrial trends, followed by providing a macro-economic snapshot and culminating in a viable business strategy.

The job of the R&D team is to lay seeds of innovation. It will play a key role in bridging the divide between ideators and front-end workers.

"The researchers will work in tandem with consulting professionals, so that customers are increasingly benefited,'' Srivastava said. "Consulting will have a significant impact on our IT/BPO revenues. It will transform us from an outsourcing player to a transformational partner."

Agencies