Are the days of recruitment in thousands by IT firms over? A cross-section of industry feels so. The disruptive cloud technologies are silently gaining ground with a potential to devour thousands of jobs in companies.
Each time a firm outsources work to the cloud, somewhere some jobs in the traditional form of service delivery are taking a hit. The human resources aspect in the IT and BPO industry is in a state of flux. Jobs in development, delivery, networking and maintenance could take a severe beating.
“A new understanding is emerging that this will lead to less job creation. However, companies can service customers globally without needing to have offices in every location or country,” Arvind Mehrotra, President (Asia-Pacific) of NIIT Technologies, pointed out.
It, however, doesn’t mean that there will be no jobs. Experts say this flux could lead to newer job avenues to address the challenges posed by the cloud.
Research firm IDC has forecast that cloud computing would help create jobs across functional areas such as marketing, sales, finance, administration, production and service. Of the 13.8 million jobs created globally by 2015 because of cloud computing, two million will be in India.
Need to re-skill
The number of jobs in application development for the cloud, for instance, will increase. Engineering colleges and technical institutes are already training graduates and engineers who want to re-skill in writing ‘cloud-ready’ applications.
“A new generation of software product companies are emerging that can sell their products over the Web. With cloud, you will see many more product companies coming up in India,” he said.
Kalyan Kumar, Worldwide Head of Cross Functional Services in HCL Technologies ISD, contradicted this view. He said cloud computing would lead to creation of more jobs. “Once applications begin moving on the cloud, organisations will have more money to invest in business. According to IDC estimates, in 2011 alone IT cloud services helped businesses around the world generate more than $600 billion in revenue and 1.5 million new jobs.
“There certainly will be job losses. But it doesn’t mean that there will be no more jobs. Those with additional skill sets will get jobs,” J. A. Chowdary of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), who also runs the talent bridge firm TalentSprint, said.
“The cloud is one of the key enablers for non-linear revenue models that the Indian IT companies are looking at. Hiring will not happen at the rate it used to happen before,” Praveen Bhadada, Director (Market Expansion), Zinnov, said.
New breed of talent
iGATE said it advocates delivering outcomes through technology and process rather than through masses of people.
“I think this will give rise to a new breed of talent that loves to disrupt to innovate and not just bill the hours,” says Srinivas Kandula, Head (HR) of iGATE.
(With inputs from Ronendra Singh in New Delhi, Venkatesh Ganesh in Bangalore.)