As cars become driverless, medical records become instantly available on smartphones and 3D simulation becomes ever more accurate, new and specialist skills are becoming critical for the Indian IT and business process management (BPM) sectors.
This has pushed industry body Nasscom to formulate occupational standards guidelines for IT services, BPM, engineering R&D and software products, with the objective of providing these segments with strong pipelines of qualified talent in the years to come.
“Growth in future will be driven by new services/solutions and not more of the same. The industry has started to make significant investments in tools, technology and talent to build appropriate solutions and communicate the value proposition,” said Som Mittal, president of Nasscom, at the 15th edition of the Nasscom BPM Strategy Summit in Gurgaon.
Keshav Murugesh, chairman of Nasscom’s BPM Council, points out that driverless cars, for instance, would require specialists that can do performance analytics of these cars, create innovative applications and those able to understand how to handle insurance for these cars. (BPM is the term the industry now uses for what was previously called BPO; the word ‘outsourcing’ has been replaced by ‘management’ to indicate that vendors manage business processes in a way that provide the best value to the customer, and do not simply outsource them to lower costs.)
The BPM Council has set up a first-of-its-kind Sector Skills Council that will focus on hiring based on competencies, collaborate with governments for capacity building, and map the career progression of BPM employees.
BPM workers will have to sit for a test and, if they qualify, they will carry a certificate of excellence from Nasscom as a passport to IT/ITeS companies. The Sector Skills Council has identified 16 unique job skills at the entry level, 111 unique ones at the mid level and 30 at the leadership level. The industry body is designing domain-specific courses that will be imparted through MOOCs (massive open online courses). It is also launching a matchmaking portal — Workforce MIS (market intelligence System) — that will bring job aspirants, companies, trainee partners and recruiters on one platform.
“It is important the industry now has some standards and frameworks because BPM companies are moving up the value chain. The thrust is now on creating good quality work force,” said Sandip Sen, global CEO of BPM company Aegis.
