New drive to give Indian computer nerds social skills
Tuesday, 12 June 2007
BANGALORE, India, June 11 (AFP): Finishing schools have come to India to groom geeky job-seeking software engineers in workplace etiquette as the country's booming information technology sector cries out for urbane talent.
The first such institution opened last week in the southern city of Mysore, offering a 12-month course meant to hone students' technical and inter-personal skills and expose them to the corporate culture that awaits them.
This year, software firms such as Tata Consultancy, Infosys and Wipro will hire an estimated 300,000 engineers, many of whom will travel the world to work with clients that have outsourced software programming jobs.
At least 100,000 of them could benefit from going to a finishing school that will make them ready for their jobs, said Kiran Karnik, the president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies, which conceived the idea.
"They are good, their raw material is fine, but they are not quite there," said Karnik. "They need a little bit of polishing, of smoothing of the rough edges."
The training imparted by the schools, several of which will open in the next few months, will not be all technical and corporate-they will also emphasise cultural studies and social activities.
The aim is to "sharpen some of the social, presentation and communication skills" in which many Indian engineers are found wanting when they interact with clients and colleagues from other cultures, Karnik said.
Indian information technology companies, which employ 1.63 million people, logged an estimated 48 billion dollars in revenue in the last financial year, a 10-fold jump in nine years. About 31 billion dollars came from exports.
Their customers, from Nortel and Alcatel to Ericsson, Aetna and Kodak, cut across industries and borders.
But India's showpiece sector is facing a major talent crunch. It is grappling with wages rising at an annual pace of 15 per cent, an employee turnover rate of 25 per cent and a rapid appreciation of the rupee that is denting export earnings.
The first such institution opened last week in the southern city of Mysore, offering a 12-month course meant to hone students' technical and inter-personal skills and expose them to the corporate culture that awaits them.
This year, software firms such as Tata Consultancy, Infosys and Wipro will hire an estimated 300,000 engineers, many of whom will travel the world to work with clients that have outsourced software programming jobs.
At least 100,000 of them could benefit from going to a finishing school that will make them ready for their jobs, said Kiran Karnik, the president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies, which conceived the idea.
"They are good, their raw material is fine, but they are not quite there," said Karnik. "They need a little bit of polishing, of smoothing of the rough edges."
The training imparted by the schools, several of which will open in the next few months, will not be all technical and corporate-they will also emphasise cultural studies and social activities.
The aim is to "sharpen some of the social, presentation and communication skills" in which many Indian engineers are found wanting when they interact with clients and colleagues from other cultures, Karnik said.
Indian information technology companies, which employ 1.63 million people, logged an estimated 48 billion dollars in revenue in the last financial year, a 10-fold jump in nine years. About 31 billion dollars came from exports.
Their customers, from Nortel and Alcatel to Ericsson, Aetna and Kodak, cut across industries and borders.
But India's showpiece sector is facing a major talent crunch. It is grappling with wages rising at an annual pace of 15 per cent, an employee turnover rate of 25 per cent and a rapid appreciation of the rupee that is denting export earnings.