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Shamik Paul

Bangalore, Aug. 24 A skilled workforce, essential for transformational services that is now the new mantra, is pushing up costs for the Indian IT vendors. But the companies aren’t complaining!

The higher costs of talent acquisition and retention is more than offset by the value they bring to the organisations, said some of the companies Business Line spoke to.

Transformational service is a new concept where the service provider acts as a partner to the client to build a complete business plan that can address the dynamics of a fast changing business world, said Satyam Computer Services Ltd. This is backed by a commitment to results in terms of growth within condensed timelines.

For this there is an additional layer of ‘Transformation Leaders’ that need to be added in terms of skills. They enable engagement with the client, convince them of the business benefits and hand-hold them during the transformation process, said Mr Rajan Kanagasabai, Head (HR Sourcing), Satyam.

Wipro Ltd also hires people with more domain knowledge and experience at the managerial level, called ‘versatilists’. “In some of the transformational deals we also acquire manpower from the customer organisation as part of the deal,” said Mr Joseph John, Vice-President (Human Resources, India & Middle East IT Businesses), Wipro.

Infosys Technologies Ltd said customers now look at IT vendors to bring in integrated capabilities in consulting, IT Services, and BPO. “Today, we focus on hiring talent with a solutions mindset, consultative capabilities, and the ability to innovate,” said Mr Somnath Baishya, Head (Global Entry Level Hiring and Campus Relations), Infosys.

This has resulted in an increase in costs for the IT companies. “The influx of the domain specific, partner-level people is obviously going to increase the hiring cost,” said Mr Kanagasabai.

However, this will be more than offset by the higher values they bring to the organisation in terms of larger deals, which are higher up the value chain. These deals are multi-year contracts with better bottomlines, he added.

The need to employ freshers, who form the regular delivery teams, also helps to offset the increase in costs. “There is always a hiring pyramid that comprises various levels of new hires. This normalises the disparity in costs of hiring the experienced versus freshers,” said Mr Sachin Tikekar, Chief of People Operations, KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd.

Mr Tikekar said transformational projects definitely require people with more in-depth domain knowledge and technical skills; this increases costs. But optimum utilisation of these resources also means more return on investment, he added.

Wipro, on the other hand, said it has not assessed the differentials in the hiring costs in transformational deals as these are part of the company’s overall hiring process.

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