B’lore still a hot destination for IT cos
Mature workforce at all levels of management is the major pull.
By P P Thimmaya & Thanuja B M, TNN |
BANGALORE: Given Bangalore’s well chronicled infrastructure woes, one expects the flow of IT companies into the city to slow down. But that’s not the case. Bangalore still reigns when it comes to attracting IT companies. The city’s runrate continues at four new companies getting registered with the STPI per week. So what’s the pull? Simply put, its mature IT workforce.
According to Prof S Sadagopan, director , IIIT-B , “No other city offers the breadth and depth across all areas of IT — from legacy to cutting edge hardware and software, systems and applications , technical, business and scientific computing. There is no other city where services, products, technology, IP creation and R&D all happens as in Bangalore.” The city, which contributes 37% of the country’s IT exports , has close to 4 lakh IT/ITeS workforce . This is 33% of India’s total IT/ITeS employee base of 1.2 million.
As T V Mohandas Pai, director, HR, Infosys puts it, “Bangalore is the largest market for IT and well diversified in terms of the capability. There is also a lot of depth coming in the hardware and chip design areas also.” He likens Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad to a ‘golden triangle’ which has an IT workforce of around 7 lakh people.
Due to the proven outsourcing capabilities of Bangalore companies, several foreign companies have developed a trust and confidence level, opines Sreehari Narasipur, vice-president , product development of Telelogic India. “So, we now have more companies willing to shift core development work to Bangalore and not just the peripheral jobs. There are also several people who have come back from the US with a wider perspective and experience. In fact Bangalore has the highest population of IT professionals who have shifted back to India. This means people are trained in deeper skills,” he adds.
According to Prof S Sadagopan, director , IIIT-B , “No other city offers the breadth and depth across all areas of IT — from legacy to cutting edge hardware and software, systems and applications , technical, business and scientific computing. There is no other city where services, products, technology, IP creation and R&D all happens as in Bangalore.” The city, which contributes 37% of the country’s IT exports , has close to 4 lakh IT/ITeS workforce . This is 33% of India’s total IT/ITeS employee base of 1.2 million.
As T V Mohandas Pai, director, HR, Infosys puts it, “Bangalore is the largest market for IT and well diversified in terms of the capability. There is also a lot of depth coming in the hardware and chip design areas also.” He likens Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad to a ‘golden triangle’ which has an IT workforce of around 7 lakh people.
Due to the proven outsourcing capabilities of Bangalore companies, several foreign companies have developed a trust and confidence level, opines Sreehari Narasipur, vice-president , product development of Telelogic India. “So, we now have more companies willing to shift core development work to Bangalore and not just the peripheral jobs. There are also several people who have come back from the US with a wider perspective and experience. In fact Bangalore has the highest population of IT professionals who have shifted back to India. This means people are trained in deeper skills,” he adds.
Gautam Sinha, CEO, TVA Infotech says that the city has sizeable talent pool in hi-tech areas like embedded technologies, device drivers and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technologies.
He says other cities like Noida and Pune too have the talent pool in these hi-tech areas, but it is still not sizeable. Prof Sadagopan says, Chennai has an edge in IT Infrastructure related & BPO areas; Hyderabad in Biotech; Pune in products while Bangalore has an edge in all of these, both in quantity and quality.
This level of maturity in IT talent also means that anybody planning to set up the operation in India can find the talent readily available in Bangalore , whether in the number of people or at senior level. Though all this comes at a price.
Mr Sinha says, “The difference between Bangalore and other cities is very wide and the city’s IT brand is still a strong enough pull to attract talent from other cities.” He says that despite large companies derisking their strategy by opening up shop in other locations , the growing number of new companies in Bangalore reveals the maturity of the workforce.
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