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Talent Hunt

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DQI Bureau
New Update

India and China are the two countries that have a greater

manpower demand and supply problem, says Michael Bekins, senior client partner

and regional market leader, Asia Pacific, Advanced Technology, Korn Ferry

International (Hong Kong). However, the crunch is causing concern not only to

the two economies, but also to other countries, he adds.

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The manpower challenge is gradually leading toward a war for

talent, setting the HR time bomb ticking on one hand, and pushing up the salary

bar for the right talent on the other, as companies get ready to pay the premium

to attract the limited talent available in the market. As Bekins points out,

every company tries to chase the most talented candidates for their company.

Throwing light on the key challenge faced by the IT industry

globally, Bekins points out that the industry is changing so much, but it is not

able to develop the talent fast enough. Today the inflow is growing and there

are more people coming from the systems in India and China, but the problem is

that the pipeline is not growing and developing fast enough to keep pace with

the demand.

"India and China are

the two countries that have a greater manpower demand and supply

problem"




-Michael Bekins
, senior client

partner and regional market leader, Asia Pacific, Advanced Technology,

Korn Ferry International (Hong Kong)

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Scaling

up from $3 bn to



$30 bn: What they need to do
  • Institutionalizing some

    of the senior management strategic capabilities

  • Taking advantage of the

    entrepreneurial instincts that culturally India produces

  • Identifying and

    prioritizing the company's critical talent and then developing and

    nurturing it further

  • Anticipating the type of

    skills and talent that the company will require in the coming years

    and building buffer talent, and bringing in more people with

    experience

  • Creating internal

    markets for talent

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There is hyper growth in the outsourcing industry, global

development centers by MNCs and global business in India. All this frantic

growth, in turn, is forcing companies to hunt for talent faster. With a lot of

oldies now on their way to retirement and the industry not producing talent fast

enough to keep pace with the rapid growth, there is not enough talent pool

globally. The dearth of talent availability is going to be marked in the middle

to top rungs. "We're getting a lot of fresh talent, but not enough of

developed talent. The talent pool at the middle and top management is not being

developed fast enough. There is going to be a dearth of experienced leadership

who can respond to the change fast enough," says Bekins.

Inculcating flexibility, global thinking and global experience

are some of Bekins' suggestions for the Indian IT industry for developing the

right talent pool for the next generation leadership. "Today an executive

in India needs to play at the global level with global standard even if he is in

a domestic role. The world is so inter-connected that one can't isolate the

Indian market from the rest of the market place. It's the global executive

that's in short supply," he adds.

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Therefore, in order to support growth in the long run, the

Indian IT companies will need to develop manpower with global standards.

Increasingly, the companies are going to be looking at executives who can

operate at a large scale. For the top rung IT companies in the billion-dollar

club, the challenge will be how to climb higher in the value chain. Scaling up

from a $3 bn company to a $ 30 bn company will require developing the

leadership.

Shipra Arora





shipraa@cybermedia.co.in

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