Infosys to hire 25,000 techies by 2007- The Economic Times

Infosys to hire 25,000 techies by 2007- The Economic Times

Well I do not know about others, but I am always very sceptical of growth of IT businesses in India. Especially the way it is growing, hiring 25,000 pros in one year, Another company hiring 4000 pros in one year, etc.

The question that comes to my mind is, for how long can we sustain this growth?
Reasons for this growth in IT are:
1. Cost effectiveness
2. Skilled manpower
3. Largest English Speaking population.

Well the reasons mentioned above can easily be attained by any other country. Billing rates for our software programmers are, at all time low of around US$ 10.00 to US$ 15.00 per hour. To add to the woes, there is always increasing pressure to bring down the costs, further!

Well going by US$ 10.00 per hour, it is a salary of 8.5 lacs per annum (My maths is very poor). Which is becoming pretty much standard for senior software programmers.

The answer to the problem, as answered by many people is to improve quality, provide expertise in the area etc etc. Well, except for the big names in the business; most business run for the cheapest options available. And, I think no matter what we provide in services; until and unless its cheap it is going to be a difficult job to attract business.

BPO minds are already trying to cash in on LPOs and KPOs by moving higher up the value chain - and I can see in the future that Indian companies would be outsourcing jobs to cheaper countries. We are already doing that in many ways.

I am waiting to see the next big thing to hit Indian software market, and making us move higher up in the value chain. We are already witnessing some big names in research setting up shop in India. We need to wait and watch, that this trend continues.

Except for this what worries me more is, how the world economy is dependent on US economy. What happens when we come face to face with US Economy. Where do we hunt for business? Will, the Indian economy able to provide jobs to so many software pros and call centre execs?

This scenario is going to be very exciting. But makes, me shiver if we all fall into traps of poverty/recession/huge debts. This leads us to another topic as to why our generation needs to learn to save and not live on loans. Well I will discuss this in my next post.

-Thinking thinker