Structural Unemployment in Indian IT Industry!

"The global software service industry is fast asleep and no action is taking place. The business stakeholders, private equity funds, angel investors and other stakeholders need the dose of basic education. And the task force needs to break the pattern!"

No. These are not the excerpts from the writings of an eccentric maniac under the influence of dope!

This is the ultimate conclusion I have arrived at after the 3 months emotionally destructive undocumented analysis I have done about the present state of global software service industry.

How come?? Read on!

Uh.. the basic problem which initiated this was the Structural Unemployment.
Starting my career with the basic engineering degree with a dash of quality certification something any student would have dreamt of. I was placed and well placed even before any other student of my class was the best thing that I could have dreamt of. Clock hands kept on rotating and I spent 3 years in the Software Service industry. Adding the cherry of management degree on my software career pudding was the next logical step. So far so good.. I tried the IIMs and didn't get through. Never lost patience and thought not to break the smooth sailing career in order to join a B-rated B school, I opted for Part time MBA along with the job. Well, sounds logical so far. Clock hands didn't break the rotation and I spent another 3 years studying the management concepts. Dream was to redo 'all' the things at the work place after the daunting 'unlearning' I did in the management program. Plan was to do everything from a fresh perspective like an alphabet on a clean slate uncluttered with rotten theories and obsolete concepts.

Today, I stand at the cross roads struggling to find a suitable position in the Software Service industry worldwide which 'expects' management degree. The irony started when I observed that the software service sector can only think of Business Development as the role to be assigned to a Techno-Manager.

Oops.. I am being cynical? Not yet. Because I am yet to find a Job Description which quotes MBA as an essential qualification in the sector? From supervisory positions to Project Managers, Program Managers and beyond the only qualification which I come across is Engineering with past management experience. If you see the Organizational hierarchy of any company, the next obvious promotion of a Supervisory position is a Managerial position! And where does the qualified manager position go? God damn only in Sales and Business Development.

The real need is to stitch the management positions with management qualifications. That is the reason why more and more engineers are unsatisfied with their managers because they observe the lack of basic management skills. Organizations worldwide have failed to find the root cause of the scarcity of a smart manager. Recruiters are looking for PMP certified managers but they are-- believe me-- really expensive. Small and mid sized organizations cannot afford to have a PMP certified manager in a basic Project Management position. And the collective employee count in the small and mid sized organizations is way more than the employees working in large organizations in this sector. Hence the growing dissatisfaction, employee turnover, and mis-management. Then organizations try to correct these problems partly by investing heavily on soft skills, time management, communication skills, presentation and other soft skills. All this money which is going down the drain in recruitment (due to employee turnover), training and external consultancy can be saved by recruiting the Managers with a Management qualification (read MBA).

The time has come to stop this Structural Unemployment and misfit recruitment. It is high time that the business stakeholders start questioning the credibility of management position holders in the organizations. Also, I think it is prudent on an employee's part to question the management qualification of his/her manager.

So what can be done to kill this structural unemployment?

Answer: Find the Techno-Managers for all the cross-functional positions of Project Managers, Program Managers, Practice Heads, Product Managers. Avoid the Manager-by-line promotions and prefer the Manager-by-Ability promotions. Encourage supervisory staff to attend the long-term comprehensive management courses instead of unstructured topical trainings in soft skills, communication, time management etc.

Surveys-Out: Games-In

While going thru the latest updates of the recent Bar Camp held in Noida, I came across an interesting company Uzanto. The sheer curiosity of an interesting name pulled me to their website www.uzanto.com. I had never thought that what I am going to see will leave a strong impact on the Market Research subject I have studied in my management degree.

I like doing primary analysis and data collection. But the old mundane way (copy 'old mundane way') of collecting data can be so interesting and so very Web 2.0 compliant :-)

Uzanto ('user' in esperanto) provides a service of doing User behavior and data collection to aid in the Systems Designing. It can suggest UI Design Patterns by doing cognitive methodologies. Look at the url www.themindcanvas.com. I am impressed by the Mind Canvas software (service essentially) which captures the User-System interaction analysis by using simple games (specially designed for each customer). Look at the demos and the analysis they provide.


Toast to Rashmi Sinha the founder of Uzanto for such a fruitful methodology & tool.