India is rapidly emerging to transform into a global powerhouse. India is a motherland to a huge consumer base, and the working-age population is increasing. The global corporate field is rapidly turning to the Indian talent pool traceable to many push-pull factors like the ability to adapt to new technology, technique of problem-solving, relentless hard work and digital literacy. Progression is the law of nature and Indian talent has the ability to circumvent this global change.
Around the world countries are experiencing a massive increase in demand for competent technology and software talent where India is no exception. As per a report by Naukri JobSpeak, the requirement for candidates within the IT software and services sector was 55 percent higher in June than it was in January.
But what has led to the huge increase in demand for candidates in this branch? What made Indian tech talent in such high demand when the rest of the Indian economy has been slow to perk up from the consequences of the coronavirus? We have conducted a survey to find the answers for this.
Increased requirement for IT candidates
IT security and full-stack developers experience 166 percent and 110 percent development, respectively, between October 2020 and March 2021. As the world of business has advanced over the past year-and-a-half and involved the technology wave, companies have experienced growing pressures to keep pace. Organizations have sought candidates that are smart, innovative, and well equipped to modernize IT and business operations and to improve their technology capabilities. At the present day, skills like big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cyber security have come up top-of-mind for many business and tech leaders.
It was known that by 2022, India’s cloud market is estimated to grow 26% year-on-year to a $5.6 billion market.
The report of NASSCOM said that “the demand for cloud skills outweighs the current supply and with an aggressive talent building roadmap, the pool of professionals can grow up to 1.8 million by 2025, making India the world’s second largest cloud talent hub”.
Around 40,000 cloud professionals are hired with SaaS startups in India, predicted the report.
The report added that “cloud roles in the sector of native application development, network virtualization, containerization and service architecture are gaining significance apart from specialized skills in cloud security and related disciplines”
“Cloud adoption has witnessed an accelerated adoption during the pandemic as enterprises focused on building hybrid work models, collaboration infrastructure and business continuity,” Debjani Ghosh, president of NASSCOM, said in a statement.
She added, “Cloud has moved from being a relative back-end to a front-end (business-facing) technology, enabling on-demand access to resources.
For India to carve itself a unique identity as a global hub for cloud solutions, a concentrated public-private partnership, and large-scale skilling is the key.”
The growth of Indian education system
As per the All India Survey on Higher Education Report of 2019-20, higher education in India has endorsed a flow of 11.4% in student enrolments. The GER (gross enrolment ratio) in higher education has outpaced the 27% mark. Remarkably, the educational view of India has improved. From 1,043 universities listed on the All India Survey on Higher Education portal, 993 universities have focused in different fields like fine arts, agriculture, language, law, management, Sanskrit, medical, science, technical, etc.
Universities throughout the country have begun focusing on idea generation, global issues, critical thinking and overall personality development. This growth has led to the development of entrepreneurship and skill improvement in the country.
The abundance of talent in India
The Indian talent pool has steadily and gradually climbed the corporate mountain worldwide. It has also played a very important role in advancing various technology powerhouses. Google, Pepsi, Mastercard and Microsoft are some of the largest companies where Indians have occupied vital positions. The tech capital of the US, Silicon Valley, is home to some of the top companies across the globe. In 2020, the top 15 firms in the Valley included around 40% of tech employees and brought about US$ 1.35 trillion in revenue. Taking the case of Gulf Today, about one-third of all engineers in the tech capital are of Indian origin, and around 10% of the world’s largest tech companies have CEOs of Indian origin. Experts always think that the training and fostering of Indian managers can assist in creating a pipeline of potential leaders.
As stated by a book authored by Mr. Vivek Wadhwa, Indian-origin leaders have been known for changing global companies from dominant, old, and aggressive nature to a culture where a company aims to create a comfortable environment for its employees.
Continuing talent and retention challenges
In the months ahead, as the need for tech talent continues to grow aggressively, companies in India will surely face issues in not only recruiting new candidates, but retaining existing employees. With a growing gap between the supply and requirement of skilled workers, candidates will continue to control the labor market for the foreseeable future. Today some of the companies are being forced to fulfill the expectations of prospective employees and salaries have been driven up by as much as 50 percent. Candidates with niche IT and tech qualifications know that they’re in the main seat and they’re taking full benefit of the situation. If today’s workflow trends continue, it would not be different to see the talent acquisition and retention issues nowadays hindering Indian companies remaining pervasive for the future years.
The way ahead for India
Businesses are driven from theories to brilliance by people. For a country that is developing start-ups at a significant pace, a pivotal investment that any country can make to quicken their production is in its human resources. India has to improve an endearing culture that captivates and encourages the best and the boldest minds of the country to promote an environment that encourages inclusive growth. The world has transformed to a digital platform and so have businesses. Here we will be also able to find a huge talent scarcity, specifically in the technology landscape, which has led to creation of global banks, tech giants, and multiple fast-growing startups. The talent pool of India will surely be a valuable asset to the world for attaining excellence.
