They are yet to set foot in the byzantine corridors of the corporate world and begin their climb up their career ladders. But one thing they were not lacking was unbounded enthusiasm and energy.

Clearly, the 370-odd management students of the TKR Institute of Management & Science in Hyderabad, who participated in the inaugural Business Line Club guest lecture series for the current academic year, mirrored the dominant trait of India’s younger generation—passion for excellence and success.

That they are knowledgeable than the older generations was also clear from the way they hurled questions related to the IT and telecom sectors to the speakers at the event held on the institute campus.

Inaugurating the lecture series, Mr K. Venugopal, Executive Editor, The Hindu Business Line, said “youth has tremendous opportunities to take part in India’s growth story. Knowledge will provide the necessary edge to be competitive.”

Over 60 such events will be held throughout the State during the year, providing management students a platform to interact with industry chieftains. The event was sponsored by Tata Photon.

GOING STRONG

The tone of the meeting was set by Mr Shakti Sagar, Managing Director of ADP and President of AP Chapter of CII, who dwelt on the opportunities in the IT sector. He said the export revenues from India’s IT and ITES sectors was projected to increase from the present level of $ 73 billion to $ 200 billion by 2020.

“A significant slice of the employment potential from this sector will emerge from tier II and III cities. Already a significant portion of the 2.3 million associates that this sector presently employs come from these cities,” he pointed out.

He identified the two areas of remote infrastructure management and internet security services as those to be watched out for in the coming years. Broadly, IT services in the animation, health care and human resources sector should open up new opportunities for today’s generation.

Mr Shakti Sagar, however, had one word of caution for the students. “There will be opportunities, but with that will come competition. You have to set yourself apart-- you have to have domain knowledge. And one thing is that you must have patience—there is no short cut to success. It is not a fast elevator ride upstairs,” he said.

Telecom Sector

Mr S. Ramakrishna, Regional COO of Tata Teleservices Ltd, connected well with the students on the basic truths in India’s telecom story, prospects and challenges.

“Do you know how much the teledensity in the country increased from 2001 to 2010? (Silence) It has grown from 4 per cent to 65 per cent,” he told the students. “And of this, the urban teledensity is 130 per cent, meaning there are 130 phones for every 100 persons. But in the rural areas, it was still at 27 per cent.”

He reeled out these figures to underline the fact that the next growth story in telecom sector will come from rural areas and with it will follow employment and other opportunities. “But the urban growth story is not over yet. It is moving on to a new sphere that will see video-on-demand, which has just started, and more VAS, based on 3G services,” he said.

Mr Ramakrishna said there will thus be huge demand for content services and technical services such as switching system and tower operations to marketing and regulatory services. He said that the sector employs about 4 million people directly today and poised to grow this to 10 million by 2015.

“There will be other areas too. For instance, do you know the mobile today helps solve how much percentage of criminal cases today? (Silence again). It is 98 per cent—the remaining two per cent are either suicide cases or those involving the perpetrators of the crime themselves surrendering before the police. This is yet another service that will throw up opportunities,” he added.

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