Digital technology is creating more jobs not just in the IT sector, but across all industries, including manufacturing, agriculture, real estate and retail. It enables delivering better value and services to consumers, and also help employees get better pay, said R Chandrasekaran, Executive Vice-Chairman, Cognizant India.
Technology is creating high-paying jobs as most of the end-user companies are heavily dependent on technology, he said at a seminar on ‘Digital Tsunami – Survive and Thrive’ at Digital Disruption and Transformation Summit and Exhibition 2017 organised here by FICCI’s (Federation of India Chamber of Commerce and Industry) Tamil Nadu State Council.
BusinessLine was the event’s media partner.
New skills
End-user companies are looking for top-notch talent, and this creates more jobs; this is not included in Nasscom numbers. Technology continues to be a thriving area for people to make a career, provided a person has the right skills; old skills won’t be enough. It all depends on how fast a person can quickly adapt to change, Chandrasekaran said.
Global technology spend will increase, not decrease in future, and this will create a lot more opportunities for the IT industry. The Indian IT industry is likely to grow 7-9 per cent. No other industry is growing at this pace, he said. “A lot of people have written negative things about the IT industry; but it is still the sunrise industry.”
There is going to be a net addition of nearly 1.5 lakh jobs to the industry. It may be less when compared with previous years. But this should be looked from the perspective of the industry size of $150 billion. The 7-9 per cent growth is still very healthy, and still there are a lot of opportunities, Chandrasekaran said.
Digital revenue
Of the total industry growth, the share of digital revenue will grow 15-20 per cent. This is much more than the historical revenue provided by IT services offerings. There is a lot more to look for digital disruption in the IT sector, he said.
Rajendra Kumar, Chairman and Managing Director, Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu, said that to enable digital transformation in the government sector, there should be a long-term digital strategy aimed at exploring the potential of new technologies. The goal must be end-to-end transformation of the entire business processes and not just the delivery interface.
On any evidence of whether digital disruption has happened or not, Avnish Sabharwal, Managing Director (Digital, Strategy and Innovation), Accenture, said the average lifespan of an S&P 500 company has decreased to less than 18 years from around 60 years. Multiple companies like Kodak have disappeared from the Fortune 500 list, replaced by platform companies such as Amazon and Google, he said.
