Finding quality manpower is a problem for SIs

GOLDIE

Getting quality technical professionals is fast becoming an ordeal for many solution providers. And this is something they are learning the hard way. A prominent SI in southern India could manage to find only three out of 10 support engineers that he was supposed to provide on his client-site, as part of the deliverables.

In fact, all his efforts to get well-experienced and qualified technical personnel by means of advertisement, recruitment agency and word-of-mouth publicity failed. Result: The SI lost the order!

And this is not an one-off incident. The entire breed of mid-sized solution providing organizations is facing this dilemma. That of finding well-experienced and capable technical manpower and then retaining it too.

"The ground realities are too grim. The fact is that there is not enough trained manpower available in the market. While our business grows, this continues to be the biggest deterrent to the growth," remarks Cherian Thomas, Director-Marketing, Wysetek Systems Technologists.

And any amount of 'situation vacant' ads in local dailies or services of manpower agencies too, are not turning into great help. "We conducted walk-ins, went through consultants, spread the word around, but yet the kind of people that we were looking for hardly turned up," rues C Dhananjay, Director, Computer Factory.

So does this mean that the industry is suddenly witnessing a drought of quality manpower, that too in a country which boasts of a huge number of degree and diploma holders? "No, getting a fresh degree/diploma holder is not a problem. But finding a Microsoft or Cisco-certified engineer with three or four years experience and can do justice to complex technical requirements at the client-site, is increasingly becoming difficult," answers G Balakrishnan, Director,
Ontrack.

And SIs like Bala point out quite a few valid reasons. First, these are not 100% solution-centric companies and still majority of their business comes from pure hardware sale. As a result, pay packages provided by them is at least 30% to 40% less than what pure solution-based companies, like Wipro or CMS or even a principal, offer.

"While I would be willing to pay a Microsoft/Cisco-certified engineer with four years of experience, an annual package of Rs 2 lakh, he would prefer to work with a tier-1 SI like Wipro or even a vendor at a starting salary of at least Rs 3 lakh," elaborates
Balakrishnan.

Another significant reason behind this gap in supply and demand of quality manpower is the high expectations from the client's end but unwillingness to pay for the same. "Clients still expect support engineers to be made available to them at salary packages that existed in 2002. We have, in fact, given up on deals, when we realized we would not be able to give quality professionals their deserving salaries," remarks Bimal Raj, CEO, Allied Digital Systems.

Another anathema that haunts these SIs is that even if they put in resources to groom a fresher and technically equip him, nine out of ten chances are that he would jump at a better offer very soon. "It really is a grim situation for our solution partners," agrees Jyoti Satyanathan, Country Manager, xSeries and Intellisations, IBM India. According to him, many projects have suffered because of unavailability of quality people.

Even hardware training institutes agree to some extent. "It's not that talent is not available, but we don't see many students coming forth for such courses. Many are still wary of incidences where people have burned their hand with numerous training institutes giving job assurances," says Nikhil Murarka, Director, Solution World. While Nikhil maintains that his institute enrolls 25-30 students every month all of whom are placed, he feels the faulty education system is also to be blamed.

Further, given the fact that even call-centers are currently offering monthly salaries above Rs 10,000, SIs now really have to scale up their solutions business to be able to attract the best-of-breed talent.