Pankaj
Jalote
Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology
For
The current profile of
sales the software industry reveal that less than 10% of the revenues are from
software products. Though many companies are trying to increase this percentage
to about 20-30% by the turn of the century, it is clear that the Indian
software industry will stay predominantly a service provider in the near
future.
The most critical
resource in the software industry, particularly the one that is service
provider, is the software professional. With the rapid pace with which
technology is changing in the IT industry, software providers will have to keep
developing skills and knowledge to develop software with and for new
technologies. For this the software professional not only has to be well
trained in current technology, but needs to have the ability to quickly absorb
and use new tools and technology. This requires people with solid technical
background, besides having skills for current technology. This need will even
be more acute in future as the Indian software industry is consistently
advancing towards executing software development projects of higher value and
complexity.
Currently, most of the
software professionals in the Indian software industry have engineering or
computer science background. MCAs and graduates from
not-so-good institutions, have not provided the
quality manpower that is needed. The need of the hour is high quality manpower,
not just manpower with some programming skills. That is why, given a choice,
there is no doubt that most software companies will prefer graduates from IITs, RECs, and other good
engineering colleges.
Let us understand the
manpower need for the future. Current turnover of the Indian software industry
is about $1 Billion, almost half of it coming from exports. With the average
billing around $20K to $30K per person-year, this translates to about 30,000 to
50,000 software engineers currently employed in the software industry. If the
industry grows by 25% each year (a very conservative estimate for an industry
that has been consistently growing by 40-50% for the last many years), or
double its turnover by year 2000 (which is the projection of NASSCOM), it will
need to hire approximately as many new
software professionals as it currently employs, in the next few years. That is,
it will need 30,000 to 50,000 high quality software professionals in the next 3-4
years!
Where will these people
come from? Most of the good engineering colleges like IITs
and RECs produce about 300 engineers per year. In
other words, the current production of all engineering disciplines from the top
40 engineering colleges will be approximately 12,000 per year. Hence, to
achieve the targets, the software industry will have to hire almost all the
graduates of the top 40 engineering colleges each year for the next many years!
Needless to say, this will not be possible.
Due to the need for high
quality, most software companies will not like to hire graduates of lower rung
colleges, specially the companies that want to execute high value software
projects. Let us illustrate this point. Infosys, one
of the largest and most reputed software companies in
So what should be done to
solve this fundamental problem that the software industry is bound to face?
There is no doubt that given the reputation of the software industry and the
potential of demand in
Clearly, as a nation, if
we are to exploit this unique opportunity, then we need to produce a lot more
high quality engineers that are well trained in computing and technology, and
many more computer scientists. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.
To produce good quality
engineers, good quality engineering institutes are needed. The hallmark of all
the good educational institutions is the high quality of faculty they have. And
quality of faculty in a technical institute cannot remain high if the faculty
is not engaged in R&D activities, as interest and involvement in R&D is
the primary means of faculty staying abreast of latest developments in the fast
changing technological scenario. Unless a faculty member is activily
interested in R&D, he or she is likely to get obsolete rapidly. This
implies that the high quality educational institutes must necessarily have a
reasonable post-graduate program (as PG programs form the backbone of R&D
activities). In addition, most qualified persons who are interested in
academics are not likely to join an institute if it does not have research and
PG programs. Technically qualified people join academics, despite considerably
lower salaries than prevailing in the industry, largely because academics also
offers opportunities for research. It is primarily due to reasonable PG
programs and R&D orientation that places like IITs,
IIMs, IISc, Delhi school of
Economics, etc., have been reasonably successful in attracting competent
faculty. It follows then, that private engineering colleges, which, in India,
are primarily set up as money-making ventures, and therefore do not generally
support R&D, will not be able to attract qualified faculty and hence will
not be able to produce the quality graduates that are needed. Also, as getting
highly qualified engineering faculty is extremely hard these days, it is almost
impossible to set a high quality educational institute in a short time, even if
resources are provided.
The most efficient,
quickest, and obvious way to produce the software manpower (engineers with good
background in software and technology, and computer scientists) in the desired
numbers is to leverage the currently existing high quality engineering
institutes to produce more. This means that these institutes will need to
dramatically increase their intake of computer science students and provide
more software and computer science training to students of other engineering
disciplines. >From the point of view of faculty, which is the most critical
resource in high quality education, this is eminently feasible. An earlier
study had shown that the student faculty ratio at IITs,
for example, is far lower than even some of the best universities in the US,
and the ratio can be easily increased up to four times, provided the necessary
resources are pumped in for this growth (Current Science, Feb 94; Economic
Times, Nov 8, 1993).
Though this is the most
optimal method of producing the quality software manpower, this approach will
also require substantial investment to enhance the infrastructure of these
institutes to support the increased intake and to suitably increase the
computing resources. In addition to this, incentives have to be given to these
institutes to undertake this expansion. Otherwise, why would an institution and
its employees undertake extra work upon themselves when the benefit of their
labor will be reaped by the software industry. Without
proper incentives, most will find ways to stall the needed expansion.
It has been estimated
(Economic Times, April 22, 1995), that for increasing the output by about 500
engineers per year, the cost of additional hostels and some infrastructure will
require a capital expense of about Rs 10-15 crore,
and recurring expense of about Rs 1-2 crore per year for replacing computing equipment. In other
words, for increasing the output by about 5000 engineers per year (which is
about the minimum increase that will be needed), a capital investment of
100-150 crores will be required. In addition, a
recurring expense of about 10-20 crores per year will
be needed.
Where is this money going
to come from? The investment must necessarily be made if we are not to miss our
opportunity. Hence, there is an urgent need for the three concerned parties -
the software industry, the government, and the academia - to get together to
decide how the good institutions in the country are to be funded for increasing
their output. As an example, if just 1% of the turnover of the software
industry is plowed back for this purpose, then with a matching grant from the
government, it will translate to about Rs 70 crore per year (at present turnover levels) - enough to
fund a phased-growth in the top 10-20 engineering institutions in the country.
If something like this is
not done almost immediately, the top educational institutes will continue
producing engineers and computer scientists at the rate they are producing,
software industry will keep complaining about manpower shortage and keep
looking for quick and cheap solutions to a problem that has no cheap and quick
solutions, and our Nation will miss the rare opportunity circumstances has
provided.
--
Pankaj Jalote
Tel: +91-512-597619 (o) Professor and Head Tel: + 91-512-598501 (r) Dept. of
Computer Sc. and Engg. Fax: +91-512-590725/413
|
|