Qualified Outsourcing Personnel:
An Escalating Problem for India

Where have all the good men gone?

It has recently been affirmed, by the head officer of India's IT trade corporation Nasscom, that the outsourcing “gold rush” will soon suffer from lacking qualified personnel in India, unless it revitalises the country's educational system.

The president of the association, Mr. Kiran Karnik, pointed out in Bangalore that the land was not truly successful in producing well-trained people, prepared and ready to get involved in the outsourcing business field, which inevitably leads to the conclusion that the country's offshoring businesses will soon not be able to face honourably the IT western companies' demands looking into outsourcing.

Even though in India 2.5 million students graduate every year, only 5,000 of those are Ph.D.-s. Moreover, only a tiny percentage of these are really suitable for the BPO industry, Karnik added. It was also he, who has drawn attention upon the fact that if the status quo does not promise even the slightest change in the immediate future, the land will be facing a deficit of some 250,000 qualified employees by 2012.

Should one also take into account the expected increase in Indian export of software (around 30% in 2004 – 2005), the employees - or the want of them – will surely become a hard nut to crack for western companies looking for locations to offshore. According to a timely Gartner report, Eastern European countries like Romania are the potential future partners for the West in their emulation with India.

For further information in this respect, we recommend you the excellent reports you will be able to read on www.silicon.com, a valuable and reliable source of information with regard to the outsourcing trend.