Blame it on hometown migration, elevated attrition levels or a scenario where 30-40 percent of the employees in an organization are less that two years old, the IT industry is in a perfect storm, believes Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji.
Speaking at an event organized by the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Premji said that those living in cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai or Pune have gone back to their hometowns, with no active interest in necessarily returning to big cities.
This, he feels, is a huge challenge for the industry despite growth since it becomes a question of how to build culture.
It may be noteworthy that the IT industry has been reporting elevated attrition of late. The COVID-induced crisis led to a dramatic rise in the demand for tech services, which further led to a jump in salaries offered as well. For the quarter ending June 30, Wipro’s attrition stood at 23.3 percent, and was one of the few companies to not see an uptick from last quarter.
A big focus for Wipro, Premji said, is driving connectedness and a sense of belonging in the organisation, as people either leave jobs for a dramatically different compensation or a lack of connectedness where other people in the company aren’t invested in their career.
With regard to the technology services industry, he said, “People came to India essentially for cost, they stayed for quality and now we’ve become a true talent destination in the world. The technology industry in India was $1 billion in 1997. We're $227 billion today as an industry.” While the industry is partly to blame for some of the chaos that exists in big cities, it has come a long way in the last 25 years, he added.
Premji was also bullish about startups. "I think the startup community will do for India — in terms of brand building, in terms of wealth creation, in terms of job creation — what the technology services industry was able to do over the last 20 years…I think large companies can learn a lot from startups, they can learn the ability to be decisive, to be bold, to be fast, to be agile,” he said.
However, he cautioned about an “over-indexation on unicorns”.
“People get a little bit too focused on valuations as opposed to building valuable businesses. We should focus much more on building valuable businesses and valuations will come. Focus on attracting the best teams, best people, people who are infinitely better than you and get them to work as a part of your organization,” he added.
For the tech services industry, Premji said he is excited about how the next five-seven years will unfold, and added that India has the unique advantage of talent.
“There's a disproportionate mismatch between the availability of people and the need for people. If 20 years ago, people were coming to India for cost, today they're coming to India because talent exists and it's a very profound but fundamental change. People are not coming to India anymore, because it is cheaper. People are coming to India because that's where the talent is available. And so there's a tremendous opportunity for us to capture,” he said.
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