By Ravi VenkatesanIndia's IT industry is unlikely to remain the amazing job engine that it has been....

1. IT party is over. Now's the time to reinvent or die
By Ravi Venkatesan
India's IT industry is unlikely to remain the amazing job engine that it has been. For the past two
decades, the fastest way to increase your income has been to land a job with an IT company . The
industry has provided a ticket to prosperity for mil lions of young Indians; children of security
guards, drivers, peons and cooks catapulted themselves and their families firmly into the middle
class in a single generation by landing a job in a BPO. Hundreds of engineering colleges
mushroomed overnight churning out over a million graduates a year to feed the insatiable demand of
India's IT factories.
This party is coming to an end. A combination of slowing demand, rising competition and
technological change means that companies will hire far fewer people. And this is not a temporary
blip -this is the new normal. Wipro's CEO has bravely admitted that automation can displace a third
of all jobs within three years while Infosys CEO Sikka aims to increase revenue per employee by
50%. Even Nasscom, the chronically optimistic industry association, admits that companies will hire
far fewer people. Not only will the lines of new graduates waiting for job offers grow rapidly longer
every year, but so too will the lines of the newly unemployed as all companies focus more on
utilization, employee productivity and performance. Employees doing tasks that can be automated,
the armies of middle managers who supervise them and all those with mediocre performance
reviews and without hot skills are living on borrowed time.

2. So what do you do if you are a member of these endangered species? What constitutes good career
advice in these times? I'd say that the first thing is to embrace reality and recognize that the game
has changed for good. The worst thing to do is be wishful and wait for the good times to return. They
won't. But there are still lots of opportunities. What's happening in the industry is `creative
destruction'. New technologies are destroying old jobs but creating many new ones. There is an
insatiable demand for developers of mobile and web applications. For data engineers and scientists.
For cyber security expertise. So for anyone who is a quick learner, anyone with real expertise, there
will be abundant opportunities.
There has also never been a better time for anyone with an iota of entrepreneurial instinct. India is
still a supply-constrained economy and so there is room to start every kind of business: beauty
parlour, bakery , catering, car-washing, mobileelectronics repair, laundry , housekeeping, tailoring.

3. For entrepreneurs with a social conscience, there is a massive need for social enterprises that
deliver affordable healthcare, education and financial services. Not only are there abundant
opportunities but startups are "in" and there is no shame at all in failure. The ranks of angel
investors are swelling and it has never been so easy to get funded.There is even a website,
http:www.deasra.in, that provides step-by-step instructions to would-be entrepreneurs.
For those who prefer a good old-fashioned job, there are abundant jobs in old economy companies
which are struggling to find every kind of talent -accountants, manufacturing and service engineers,
sales reps. Technology is enabling the emergence of new 'sharing services' such as Uber or Ola that
enable lucrative self-employment; it is not uncommon to find cab drivers who make Rs 30,000-
40,000 a month.
My main point should be clear. While India may
have a big challenge overall in creating enough jobs
for its youthful population, at the individual level
there is no shortage of opportunities. The most
important thing is a positive attitude. The IT boom
was a tide that lifted all boats -even the most
mediocre ones.However, this has bred an
entitlement mentality and a lot of mediocrity . To
prosper in the new world, two things will really matter. The first is the right attitude.This means a
hunger to succeed. Being proactive in seeking opportunities, not waiting either till you are fired or
for something to drop into your lap . A willingness to take risks and the tenacity to work hard and
make something a success. Humility . Frugality . The second is the ability to try and learn new
things. The rate of change in our world is astonishing; whatever skills we have will largely be
irrelevant in a decade.People are also living much longer. So the ability to learn new things, develop
new competencies and periodically reinvent ourselves is a crucial one. Sadly , too many of us have
no curiosity and no interest in reading or learning. The future will not be kind to such people.
"The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.'' -Friedrich Nietzsche
(The author is former chairman of Microsoft India)
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