Creativity Versus Coding - The merger is on!

Indian IT firms’ attempts to enhance the value chain have resulted in HR rush at the gates of country's arts and design schools. With salary offers at a premium of well over 40-50%, IT firms are making a beeline to recruit students from the likes of National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Srishti School of Arts, National Institute of Design ( NID) and MIT Institute of Design. 

Compared to entry-level salaries of tech graduates at Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 3.5 lakh per annum, design students are being picked up by companies such as Microsoft, SAP Labs, TCS, Cognizant, Mindtree, Infosys, Wipro and InMobi, as well as e-commerce players such as Amazon, Myntra, and Flipkart for anywhere between Rs 4 lakh and Rs 18 lakh, depending on the institute.  Companies have just a few seconds to grab the attention of potential customers or end-users. They need to use a multi-sensorial, audio-visual kind of approach to tell their story or sell their product. People from a coding background like software engineers might find it harder to connect with their customer base as compared to design students, who have the training to connect companies with customers better. 

The demand for design students in IT outstrips the supply, which is driving up salaries. This is the price you pay for creativity, not just coding and engineering. So the biggest challenge is to find people with technology background, blended with creative or design capability.

My Take:  Even though a bit late, IT firms have realized and taken the right logical step to attract ‘Intuition, Design and Creativity’. I am sure we are now closer than before in delivering better value in the software product development space.

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in

Leadership is all about Courage to Act!

So it requires a Narayana Murthy to ask non performers in Infosys to leave!! Hmmm...

Software services giant Infosys, which employs 1.5 lakh people, may hand over pink slips to those who “did not add value” despite “high salaries” as it looks to cut costs and increase operational efficiency.

Infosys Executive Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy, who returned last June from retirement to head the firm and put it back on high growth trajectory, said that employees hired at huge salaries, but not performing, be asked to leave.

“One of my tasks was to ensure that the identified people who were receiving very high salaries but were not contributing as much as we wanted, were either given opportunities where they can add value to the company or they could seek opportunities elsewhere,”

 “Our costs have ballooned very rapidly in the last 2-3 years. For example, on-site compensation was 36 per cent of the overall revenue in 2010-11 and it went up to 46.3 per cent in 2012-13... A part of it was because we hired people at high salaries outside India and these people did not add value to the company,” he said.

On return, Murthy initiated a major organisational restructuring which saw eight top-level exits including that of Americas head Ashok Vemuri and BPO head V Balakrishnan in the past six months.

Mr. Murthy told analysts that Infosys would have a new chief executive by March 2015 when co-founder and present CEO SD Shibulal retires. “The new CEO will be in place by the time Mr Shibulal is ready to leave, sometime in March 2015, and I will be available for him to ensure that there is a proper transition,” he said.  

Source: The Hindu

~ Satish Chathanath Call : 9884011654 Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in