“There Is A Greater Need To Continue Our Efforts In Enhancing Skill Set”: Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM

In an exclusive interaction with Express Computer, Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM gives us valuable inputs on improving skillsets. Before we delve deeper into the same, let’s have a look at some statistics. 

It’s noted that India’s digitally skilled workforce has been growing roughly at a pace of 20 percent annually, however, there would be an increase in demand at a compounded annual rate of around 30 percent between FY19 and FY23. 

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Over the days, and especially in contemporary times, digital skill development has become a key business priority for the IT sector, and also the IT-enabled services, especially because it’s likely that the sector would be seeing a huge demand-supply gap in the upcoming days to come. A report by NASSCOM’s – Future Skilling for the Digital Economy said that “incorporating digital skill development has become a ley business priority, with around 94 percent of organisations integrating digital skill-building, as a part of their overall organisational strategy. Further, the adoption of online and technology-powered learning has grown, with 63 percent of organisations leveraging online platforms for learning.

To quote Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, “The industry today is operating under very different circumstances. Processes are evolving on a daily basis and companies are deploying innovative practices to meet the dual challenge of safety and business continuity. It is commendable to note that the industry foresaw the crisis and enabled the remote working of employees from an early stage itself. During these exceptional and evolving times, it is extremely important that we continue harnessing our skill sets on emerging technologies. There is a greater need to continue our efforts in enhancing skill set and remain future-ready.”

Also, the Indian IT-ITes industry has been adopting a multi-pronged approach over the days, to fulfill its talent needs. The report further says that organisations have found it conducive to use a mix of ‘build’ and ‘buy’ in order to fulfill the needs of their talent. Another trend that has been doing the rounds in the IT industry is ‘acqui-hiring’, whereby a company is bought for the capability that it possesses. Experts state that this ‘acqui-hiring’ creates a direct link between business strategy and talent creation. Some examples are Google acquiring Halli Labs in India, the latter worked on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Myntra, fashion e-commerce acqui-hired InLogg that is based out of Bengaluru. IT majors like Cognizant, Infosys, Cognizant, and Wipro have been reskilling and upskilling their employees, equipping them with skills like data science, design thinking, cybersecurity, interactivity, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), automation, analytics, cloud technologies, and Machine Learning (ML).

How do you ensure such skills while working remotely but? “Employees working from home must strengthen the innovation quotient across industry verticals and create new market opportunities. They must grasp every chance to upgrade their skills to remain industry-relevant and future-ready. With this aim, we have also initiated reskilling programs courseware on Artificial Intelligence, which would be under the NASSCOM FutureSkills initiative and will allow individuals to upskill themselves over the next few weeks. we would encourage all to use this opportunity of working from home to upskill themselves in the skills of the future. We are confident that together we will be able to overcome this phase and emerge stronger post the crisis,” concludes Debjani.