You don't need techies to do IT

NEW DELHI: This is the IT industry’s clarion call to all those who have been left behind in the race to become ‘techville' inhabitants. With IT companies such as Infosys, Wipro, Patni and Polaris now eyeing professionals in other sectors to meet their manpower & talent needs, thousands of non-IT professionals are quitting their traditional jobs to jump onto the tech bandwagon.

Take Patni’s case — the company trains non-IT professionals via evening classes. The part-time classes — packed with modules on sofware training and practical shop floor lessons, allow non-IT professionals to test the waters before joining the tech fraternity. Targetting the young workforce, PCS organises these free-of-cost evening classes to attract non-IT professionals from sectors as diverse as insurance, manufacturing, finance and banking.

IT major Infosys, on the other hand, expects to add around 1,000 professionals this year from non-IT sectors for its domain expertise. Others such as Wipro and Polaris too are busy absorbing professionals from varied industries holding glamour, healthy prospects and better compensation as a lure.

“The varied domain expertise that these professionals get to the company is what makes them extremely attractive, unlike the fresh graduates. Our industry needs a lot of non-software expertise as well because of the kind of clients we have on board,” says Patni training GM Sunil Kuwalekar.

The company has 80% conversion rate from these evening classes. The professionals who flock to these classes are engineering graduates having majored in disciplines like mechanical, manufacturing or chemical engineering, but with little software knowledge.

Infosys, meanwhile, is planning to hire from industries such as manufacturing, automotive, banking and financial services. “The hirings are driven by our intent to recruit people with domain expertise of a particular industry. These people are then used as managers in particular practices. We look for learnability amongst such professionals,” says Infosys HR head TV Mohandas Pai.

Endorsing Infosys’ views, Polaris Software chairman Arun Jain — the company hires from banking and insurance sectors — says, “These professionals understand the business requirements of customers and enable a better solutions delivery. They are not software programmers but business analysts who come from nationalised and private banks.”

Polaris gives these professionals training for about four weeks. “The programme imparts the perspective of software so that they understand customer requirements and can interact better with customers who are leading global banks,” he adds.

Wipro too shares the same aggressiveness. But its strategy is primarily driven by the need to get domain experts, says Wipro strategic sourcing vice-president Achuthan Nair.

On the flipside, HR honchos say the implication of this movement of talent will cause a level of disruption in those sectors from where these professionals are coming in.

“This influx of talent from non-IT sectors indicates a definite dearth of talent within IT. And training professionals from other sectors is better than training freshers as they already have instilled in them a corporate culture,” says Hewitt India practice leader Rakesh Malik.

Original story