An Indian IT major is cutting down 12000 jobs soon

This is a major business news item that impacts the sentiments of the bourses as well as the IT outsourcing industry. We are used to seeing similar headlines from multinationals of Bay Area, NA but this news coming out of TxS is a shocker as we haven’t heard such a mass retrenchment in Indian tech / IT industry.

The impact of new emerging technologies, more so AI, is being felt in a big way across the entire industry spectrum not limited to IT industry alone. The technology is rapidly forcing organisations to have a fresh look at what would be the downside of their business with the focus now being solely on how to keep the workforce employable and billable.

Re-skilling is inevitable both for the employers and employees as they need to co-exist in an environment that is changing faster than that was anticipated a few years ago.

Bain projects that India’s AI industry will generate 2.3 million jobs by 2027. However, the talent pool is estimated to reach just 1.2 million—leaving over a million positions to be filled through upskilling and training initiatives. Specialists with 10-12 years of experience in Java or Python are no longer needed and young engineers with AI skills are much preferred.

More skills are turning out to be redundant and that’s where the IT organisations are grappled with a dilemma of whether to lay-off associates or not. The most impacted areas is Infrastructure maintenance ( due to organisations moving to cloud), BPO (more automations are happening here) and mushrooming GCCs that have taken away the work from traditional IT companies.

Well, the bell is tied around the cat by TxS and it will definitely be followed by other majors. Another interesting phenomenon is that the retrenchment is aimed at senior and middle management cadres (meaning managers and senior managers) who are always hands-off from technology. Re-skilling them is a tough call as the cost of retaining them is huge. The bottom of the workforce pyramid is going to be still broader as the salary of middle or a senior manager takes care of more new juniors.

There is also a heavy pressure on organisations relying on IT outsourcing to Indian majors especially from NA, Canada and Europe. They too have an agenda to cut IT infra, application and outsourcing costs drastically as their business is also facing the shift in tech trends.

Once the darling of the bourses is on the verge of a big shake-up and the industries’ cutting down on new hires and the serving associates will hugely impact the unemployment scenario besides those passing out of engineering colleges. The recruitment model revolves around hiring young, self-taught engineers — even before they graduate.The entire educational supply chain would need a revamp to adjust with the changing tech trends.

#techtrends

#ai

#layoff

Separation – Voluntary & Involuntary

Separation from an organisation,once served for long, is an emotional act. But it is an action of one’s own volition that is planned for many months and executed. There is no remorse or pain when such a decision is taken.

Involuntary separation, meaning termination of employment , is the most painful and scary action for an individual who is so naive in not anticipating it. He or she has been so dumb and failed to notice the clues from a reporting manager or a trusted colleague.

If that day arrives, how does one react to it?

Would you go though all job postings on portals and click ‘ Apply now’ button? It doesn’t work with most recruiters as they are always flooded with such applications.

Would you activate your known network and ask for a referral? You will be asked many questions as to why you lost the job? Embarrassing questions that you may have to answer.

Would you think of your own start-up? Yes, if you have a good bank balance and have a wet towel wrapped around your tummy for some time. High risk. Your dependents also need to survive.

Would you choose a company that is willing to take you but at a much lower salary? No, it would take years or even decade to rebalance your spends with earnings.

One of the better ways is to market ‘YOU’ as a brand rather than an individual looking for any job.

Make the best use of the time ‘ in between jobs’, to aggressively self-market your visibility, competence and credentials.
Be active in social media like LinkedIn, professional forums and groups. Contribute your worth by sharing your experiences and competencies.
Take time to attend technical and professional workshops that enhance your resume.
Work on your resume to make it more attractive by engaging a good coach.
Seek mentorship / guidance and other renowned experts who may recommend you to their contacts.
Don’t rely on your old network or colleagues for a job and it is better to work with new influential contacts. Known contacts may invariably speak not in glowing terms about you but rather lowly. More harm than good.

Don’t take up ‘a’ job in a hurry but buy your time to land on a job that is worth waiting for. Exude confidence, that is a sure shot way to create opportunities for you.

Happy job hunting! ( and not a sad job break)

#jobhunt

#involuntaryseparation

#termination

#jobsearch

Successful yet lonely

It is alright one sets his or her goal to win everything – best marriage,best spouse, best house, best children, best holidays, best job, best salary and best boss ( unfortunately you can’t choose best parents).

You may or may not have got everything you wished for.

In that pursuit you burn all the energies, health, relationships, leisure etc but feel you are alone and surrounded by emptyness. Is it worth to set these goals?

At times, it is good to fail and the failure teaches you to be grounded. Hence accept it. There are people around you to build relationships with. Millionaires and billionaires are not made only with successes. They have tasted many faliures and came back on track after rectifying the faults.

The evolution of human potential

The evolution of human potential has been huge since the Stone Age. God created the same brain on every human and of the same size and structure.

So what has been the primary reason for a human to multiply the potential of his brain many times? Was it the biological reason? Was it the cultural capabilities that increased the intelligence, creativity or adaptability over time?

Stone Age human walked leaning the body forward and who taught him to walk straight today? It is his biological change that altered his personal trait. Ancient human understood sign language as that was the main mode of communicating with others. Over many thousands of centuries, he learnt to speak languages that had meaning and his cognitive abilities increased leaps and bounds. We then learnt to adapt to different environments from sub-zero temperature to a hot humid climate and took to different life styles. Civilisations, Technological advancements, cultural beliefs and social interactions have been making huge impact on humans in the way they used their brains for a better living and peaceful co-existence.

The advent of Artificial Intelligence has made humans think of exponentially increasing the human potential through new solutions and what we see today is a human with immense creativity, tools and highly trained brain power that thinks about the impossible tasks.

There is a great interplay between biological and cultural processes that constantly alters our thoughts and develops our intelligence and capabilities.

Great leaders make great decisions

A Decision is always based on circumstancial evidence and data points.

If the evidence and data points are wrong, decision goes wrong.

An average Leader relies on available material and makes a decision that goes wrong.

A great leader looks at the probability of decision going wrong with the available data points and sources. If it is high he seeks for more data.

The buck stops at the leader and he has no one to blame but himself when decisions go wrong.

There are many examples of well known organisations winding up because of poor decisions. They were supposedly led by competent CEOs but what made them to fail the organisations they were leading well until they started taking decisions that had put the company at risks.

There is no definite formula for success and it depends on intentions, resources, risks, execution and customer goodwill.

Of all the above, good intentions are what make a CEO / Leader great. Great organisations thrive for decades and they all have had great leaders.

Ethical Corruption

Is there really a way to do it?

Industrialists or businessmen who want to get things done with a Minister or a politician or a government employee often have the dilemma of whether to bribe or not. The conscience says No to it but unless it is done there is no way of a project or a payment or a work gets approved. A delay is a cost.

As a leader or CEO, how will we handle this situation?

There is a way you can be ethical and still please the person who demands it. Look around and solicit some sane advice from people in your circle as to what may please that person instead of cash bribe. Today every politician has many businesses or activities that require incomes or facilities. One of these outfits could be the beneficiary of this largesse.

No more ethical dilemma!

2024 had a lot of ups and downs.

The year that we are biding adieu to, 2024 has been an eventful year for India and the world.

The world is still reeling under the impact of wars that have killed and displaced innocent millions in Russia, Ukraine and Middle East. There has been civil wars in a few geographies too and they have taken a heavy toll of people. These are close on the heels of millions that died due to Covid. You could call these catastrophical deaths in the last 4 years akin to and extended WW3.

Elsewhere in the world people continue to live under fear of internal conflicts, political turmoils and nature’s fury. Countries put their own interest ahead of other global priorities and concerns as they try to protect their identity and security at the cost of escalating cost of living, social unrest , unemployment and sustainability issues. Trade barriers continue to hog the limelight as major countries move to enforcing protectionist policies. China continue to produce like never before to handle rising labour costs with high export volumes and is dumping their goods into countries that depend on them and its technology.

Four elections defined the way people chose local issues over the global issues- in India, Japan, UK and US. The people resolved to put their country, growth and well being as their primary mandate and chose leaders / parties whom they want to lead them. Excepting India, other three nations dismissed the ruling dispensations and chose new leaders to charter new paths.

In science and technology space, new milestones were achieved in space experiments and the most significant is the advent of Artificial Intelligence that is going to define new innovative revelations in improving healthcare, manufacturing and genetic conditions. Ai is definitely a boon and a concern for the world. The world is anxiously waiting to heap its benefits.

Major countries are taking huge efforts in predicting and thwarting climatic imbalance as we see changing weather patterns and global warming pose major worries to our next generations.

Immigrancy has assumed enormous importance and countries that are bearing the impact of both legal and illegal immigrancy have to face the fury of people as their resources are at peril. The cultural habits, militant behaviour and religious fanaticism of insurgent groups apparently destroy the peace and harmony of the citizens.

Let us fervently hope that peace and good sense prevail all over the world in 2025 and beyond.

Best wishes for a happy new year!

happynewyear2025

Categories of leaders

There are 4 types of leaders in Indian business:

Visionaries – they anticipate the industrial needs of country and expectations of people and set up industries that serve every common man- The founders of business empires, TATAs, Birlas, Godrejs…

Path breakers – they imagine big about the hidden potential of people and the country and bring them out to create revolution – Verghese Kurien, Dhirubai Ambani, M S Swaminathan, Walchand, Narayana Murthy, Sundaram Iyengar…

Super Managers – There is a long list of names in this category. They own businesses and head them too. They are largely entrepreneurs and still work as executives in their organisations. Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Bhavish Agarwal, Falguni Nayar, Lakshmi Mittal, Deepinder Goyal, Nithin Kamath, Dilip Sanghvi, Sridhar Vembu, Radha Vembu, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Radhakrishnan Damani..,,

Professionals – all those in public sector and private sector CEOs and MDs.

There is no dearth of leadership in India and hope it is leveraged more than what is being done now. We need their collective wisdom to achieve $5T economy sooner than we had planned for.

Confidence

Many people say someone or a group is over confident in pursuing an objective to its logical conclusion.

There is nothing like over confidence or under confidence in dictionary. Confidence denotes the ability to gather resources and skills to achieve an objective or a goal. The people who do it, know very well that they are capable of succeeding in their attempt. They believe they have the skills or expertise. For an outsider, evaluating an individual or a group to be confident or over confident is more due to a perception of strengths and weaknesses of people attempting a goal. Their perception may not be always correct yet they discourage any such attempt.

Confidence is belief and belief is an awareness of inner strength and to know what is possible or not. A student is always in top 5 in a class and if he or she believes she could be the top student in the class, then it is a belief of own ability. On the contrary if he or she is in the bottom 10 in a class, believing that he or she could top the class is said to be over confident by others.

Know your strength and skills before believing in your ability to succeed.

Confidence is always a positive feel and cultivating it helps in dealing with people the right way. It shouldn’t be construed as arrogance but plain belief in oneself.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” – Eleanor Roosevelt.

CIO & changing priorities

A CIO is no longer a person managing IT infrastructure, software applications deployment and keeping them running . The role today calls for closer involvement with the marketing team too. The customer feedback or competition provides a lot of data to the marketing team who in turn look upto CIO to slice and dice the data to re align their marketing strategy. The data is all about changing customer demographics, customer influencers, competition, income parity, cultural influence and pricing models. CIO needs to analyse these data and for this Data analytics is an essential tool.

Data analytics is crucial is for a business to survive and move forward. There are many software tools available to do this work and CIO would need experts to help them to analyse and interpret the data.

“Data analytics converts raw data into actionable insights. It includes a range of tools, technologies, and processes used to find trends and solve problems by using data. Data analytics can shape business processes, improve decision-making, and foster business growth”.

We,at Boardconnect India, help you in your efforts to achieve digital needs to grow and stay competitive.

THE PULSE by Sivakumar Gopal