Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Nov 20, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Nov 20, 2002 |
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eWorld
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Enterprise Resource Planning ERP back in play Vishwanath Kulkarni
IT'S back to basics in the infotech job market. The demand for enterprise software skills, especially that of application development and package implementation, is on the rise even as corporates worldover try to maximise their returns on investments in an otherwise slowed-down economic environment. A recent survey by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) reveals that ERP skills top the recruitment demand today. The demand for ERP skill sets seems to have come a full circle, as jobs are on the rise in the overseas markets. This is because organisations are attempting to fine-tune their ERP applications from their existing deployments in a bid to maximise returns. Customisation of applications to suit individual needs is the norm of the day among corporates. The Nasscom survey, conducted between June and September 2002 was mainly carried out to ascertain manpower skill requirements in the Indian software sector. The study, which scrutinised over 1,100 job openings, revealed interesting trends which reflect the growing maturity of user requirements, the service lines offered by Indian software companies and the changing skill requirements of the IT sector. The survey was conducted across leading job Web sites, recruitment advertisements in the print media and a dipstick survey among 20 HR professionals in the Indian software sector. While ERP skills lead the pack in terms of demand, Web Services follow suit, the Nasscom survey says. The demand for expertise in Web Services also reflects the growing importance of this fast growing technology, with skillsets such as J2EE and .NET in much demand. The demand for ERP skillsets also reflects in the performance of software services companies in the package implementation space. Software majors like Infosys and Wipro have reported a growth in revenues from their package implementation practice.
No room for frills
The fact that technology has taken a severe beating is well known, says Shekar of CRV Consultants. About a year-and-a-half ago, the hottest jobs were in telecom, wireless, systems software and embedded software. At that point of time, everything looked fancy. However, with no new investments happening in technology development, today nobody wants any frills. People are more interested in maximising their returns from existing deployments, he says. The application business is poised for tremendous growth, he says. Considering the inflow of requirements in the last three years, most of it is in application software, he says. The market is moving back to old mainframes where data related jobs — be it data mining or data retrieval — are becoming critical. People are putting money in applications and products that can cut down their costs and improve productivity. Among the verticals, insurance, banking, manufacturing, distribution and healthcare are doing well. More and more jobs are getting transferred to India because of the cost factor, he says. The Nasscom survey also points out the relative importance of traditional skill sets such as Unix, C++, COBOL, CICS, DB2 while new application skills in Business Intelligence & Content Management are growing rapidly with companies demanding specialists in WebSphere, Cognos, and BEA Web logic. Interestingly, EDA/ASIC/VLSI skills are growing rapidly, reflecting the growing presence of Indian companies in semiconductor design. This is reflected by the fact that a growing number of MNCs such as Cadence, Mentorix and ST Micro Electronics have set up development centres in India. The Nasscom findings show that Indian software companies have demonstrated significant capabilities to adapt to changing technologies and upgrade their skills. However, Nasscom believes that the focus on IT in educational institutions needs to be upgraded to enable Indian companies to further enhance their global competitiveness.
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