The Hindu Business Line : Waiting to be filled up

The demand for software product developers is growing but the industry is facing a supply shortfall. It's time to fill up the seats to get the show going.

SOMETIMES the opportunity is already there. There simply aren't enough people to make the most of it. As in the case of the industry demand for software product engineers - and the shortfall in the supply of talent.

Nasscom projects the demand for software product-focused professionals at over 2.5-2.8 lakh by 2008, but what do recruiters have to say?

"Hiring mid-level engineers with five years' work experience and above is akey challenge faced by recruiters," says M. Harish, General Manager-Business Development and Media Relations, Texas Instruments.

According to Harish, "Most of our talent is directed and absorbed by software services, the fastest growing sector in India. Product development requires long gestation periods. Design companies have to share risk with their customers for the success of these designs. Also, design teams should have market access to generate product ideas. This is missing in India since the markets for technology products are mostly outside India. Hence companies often take a low-risk route of software and design services."

(A word here on software product development versus application development. Broadly speaking, while applications are more user-oriented, products must have broader bases and be robust in structure so that later additions and modifications can be made on them.)

Outsourcing is a key aspect of the product development scenario in the country. Explains Gowri Shanker Subramanium, CEO, Aspire Systems, "Product companies are under pressure to release frequent new versions to the market to keep up with customer demands and beat competitors. This creates a significant need for them to outsource product development activities. If they could crash their product roadmap and release versions earlier than planned, they could gain significantly in terms of market share and revenues. But budgets for product development are fixed and resources are finite. So, the solution lies in outsourcing to an OPD (outsourced product development) company."

India has a large and growing domestic market that provides a perfect ground for Indian product companies to get a first-hand feel of customer needs. Tejas Networks is focused on telecom, where it has customers such as the Tatas, Bharti and BSNL who are building world-class networks and want the latest technological products at competitive prices. Sanjay Nayak, CEO & Managing Director, Tejas Networks India Ltd, says, "Over the past 10 years, the success of Indian services companies and offshore development centres of MNCs has created a large talent pool who are exposed to global technologies and best practices. This talent pool is now ready to take the next challenge of building complete products, rather than just solving a part of a problem for someone else. Product development requires deep pockets and with the success of product companies, venture capitalists are now more willing to invest in product companies in India."

The biggest complaint is that educational institutes are churning out engineers suited mainly for the IT services market. "Raw quantity is not an issue, but the quality of innovation, an engineering mindset, perfection and accuracy are hardly inculcated by our educational system. Of course, we have excellent assets such as our ability to work hard and think logically. So, engineers are able to come up to speed after a certain amount of training and on-the-job experience, but an ideal situation is to refine our educational system and make it better," says Subramanium.

Harish says the key skill for product development workers is in-depth knowledge of specific domains. "It is imperative for design engineers to be equipped with the necessary market knowledge. Market know-how makes the designs and product innovations relevant to the selling space. Design engineers need to have access to advanced tools in the development environment, test and validation facilities. All this must then be augmented by the availability of funds to run the product design projects efficiently," he emphasises.

For an ever-growing market, the recruitment strategies used are many. Some, such as Tejas Networks, in the last one year have added 40 per cent more people and are still recruiting aggressively.

"Presently we are 230-people strong and plan to add another 40 by the end of the year. Nearly 60 per cent of our recruitment is through employee referrals. We also recruit directly from the IITs and IISc, and also in response to our print advertisements," says Nayak.

Tie-ups in offing

The scene seems set for greater industry and academic tie-ups. "The IITs, RECs and other regional colleges are increasingly leaning towards incubating and mentoring small product companies. University programs by leading MNCs and other companies seed product innovation ideas into start-ups," says Harish.

Nayak says, "Tie-ups between industry and academia will help better align the specific needs of product companies, especially through programs such as joint-projects as well as summer-internships. We are starting to see a trend where fresh campus graduates prefer to work in product companies, rather than in the general industry, since it gives them a richer experience in terms of creating IP and products and greater work."

paromita@thehindu.co.in

Picture by Vino John

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