The Hindu Business Line : Tech support: Promising prospect

In my last article I discussed the skills scenario in India and the role stakeholders could play in improving it. Now, we will focus on the career opportunities that have emerged over the last few years, providing the youth with multiple opportunities to pursue their careers of choice.

While considering the emerging career opportunities, the information technology (IT) sector still remains hot. Most of us often tend to subscribe to the view that a career in IT essentially means roles related to software development — that of a programmer, developer or project manager. However, IT has more to offer than these traditional roles; for example, the new age IT careers of interests such as IT Infrastructure Management (ITIM) and Technical Support.

Remember the last time you received an SMS once your bank account was credited or you withdrew some money from the ATM? Or the last time you received an e-mail after you booked a ticket online? These ‘real-time’ responses often satisfy, if not delight, customers like us. To ensure we receive such responses, companies need to have excellent customer-friendly software and best-in-class IT infrastructure. The challenge here is not just writing the right code, but understanding customer expectations and providing solutions to customer problems.

IT, the backbone

Be it the services sector or manufacturing, IT has become the crucial backbone to conduct business efficiently. And in the age of ever-changing customer expectations, businesses need to go the extra mile to ensure that the customer gets more value. Thus, the demand for specialists who can help organisations sustain a customer-friendly 24x7 solution grows like never before.

And such solutions essentially include a platform on which programmes can be written and an IT infrastructure that can help such software function efficiently. That speaks of the growing importance of Software Technical Support as well as IT Infrastructure Management Roles.

India has a major advantage in playing a significant role in the ITIM-Tech Support business.

It has a robust talent pool with more than 6 lakh tech graduates and double that number of graduates passing out each year. It also offers a comparative cost advantage, even against an appreciating rupee.

Technology today has enabled companies to manage IT infrastructure and provide tech support from remote locations and quite a few major players of the Indian IT industry have grabbed this opportunity. By offering effective customer solutions, these companies are not only achieving significant business margins but are also ensuring excellent customer service standards for organisations across the globe.

The skill set required

So what essentially does someone need to pursue a career in these areas? The answer is a combination of technical and non-technical skills. The technical skills could well be managing a database efficiently, understanding a development platform or knowing the requirements of a multi-user real time response-based network. And, for areas such as ITIM or Tech Support, nurturing and upgrading one’s skills are more critical than merely acquiring them.

How important are the non-technical skills for a job in tech-support or ITIM? Well, as much as the technical ones, if not more. Handling customer expectations and often exceeding them requires much more than technical knowledge. It requires one to understand the situation, analyse the issues and communicate the solution. It’s not just English communication skills but articulating thoughts with conviction that matters.

At MeritTrac we have assessed this particular skill using a test called ‘Persuasive Communication Skills’ which helps in identifying and engaging the right kind of talent for roles with significant customer interaction.

For professionals in such fields, it becomes crucial to be associated with organisations that play a pivotal role in ensuring significant knowledge input. Services & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) is one such international body of repute. Founded in 1989, it has grown to become the largest industry trade group for technology service and support professionals, with a membership of nearly 200 companies in the areas of tech support, field service and customer relations around the globe.

SSPA is now engaged in an in-depth study in India on Talent Management for Emerging Markets. Dheeraj Prasad, Chairperson of this study & Director, Developer Support for a global software company, describes a tech support profile as “a talent that virtually sails the digital seas to work with customers anywhere on the globe, drives a high-end technology machine that runs on a culturally neutral gear and works and collaborates with people twice his experience.”

Therefore, the opportunity before the Indian graduate talent pool is huge. An ITIM or a tech-support role is no longer just limited to engineering graduates. Leading IT majors have already started exploring the potential of science graduates, by training them to handle such roles. The day when the door could be opened to graduates from other streams as well as diploma holders with the right combination of skills and aptitude is not far away. Some of the most successful technologies are the ones that enhance customer experience and create that ‘WOW’ factor.

It is a robust IT infrastructure and customer-centric support that delivers this experience across all businesses where the Customer is the King!

(The writer is co-founder and CEO, MeritTrac Services.)

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