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The Digital Talent War – The Need for an Implicit Competitive Edge
The Digital Talent War – The Need for an Implicit Competitive Edge

December 2, 2021

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The spectre of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the global enterprise ecosystem at a crossroads. On the one hand, it has accelerated digital transformation, creating significant opportunities for organizations across all sectors. And on the other, this sudden surge in demand for digital skills has led to a talent war. It’s no wonder that ‘talent’ has been a major point of contention in every single conversation that I have had with my industry peers over the past year.

Companies today are anxious about the expanding gap between the demand and supply of digital talent. At the same time, the consequences of not having the right skill set at the right time for the right task is equally worrying. A Salesforce commissioned survey I looked through recently revealed that 14 G20 nations could potentially miss capitalizing on a whopping USD 11.5 trillion cumulative GDP growth opportunity due to the digital skills gap. For India, the digital talent shortage could be equally scathing. According to NASSCOM, the total demand for digital talent specializing in technologies such as big data analytics and AI in India is estimated to be around 800,000. And the demand-supply gap for talent in this technology domain is expected to round up at around 140,000 by the end of this year.

To deal with this skills gap and win the digital talent war, companies will need to closely understand the following talent imperatives as business models transform at blistering pace:

1. Core foundation skills are still the key

After years of testing and prototyping, new-age technologies such as cloud, IoT, and artificial intelligence have attained mainstream status. While people with specialized skills around these technologies will be highly sought after, companies also need to emphasize on recruiting individuals with strong programming and software development skills as a significant part of their future workforce and upskill them to transform digital ideas into tangible use cases.

2. Hiring for potential and not just experience

Decision-makers need to think beyond experience when it comes to filling up critical technology roles within teams. Of course, experienced employees with domain knowledge will be required to be at the helm of enterprise-transformation initiatives, but the groundwork will need to be laid by people with comparatively lesser experience but high potential. This, in turn, can help companies address the issues associated with high attrition and salary inflation.

3. Collaboration between technology companies and academia is a must

In India, the digital skill development courses and curriculum gets updated only every 3-5 years, which is not in sync with the fast-evolving technology trends and hence often leads to a skill gap. Closer collaboration between companies and academia in the form of workshops or internships will help fresh graduates closely understand the nuances of evolving technology and its application in the enterprise ecosystem. This will help provide the right start to freshers when they enter their professional careers.

In the next and final part of the blog, I will delve deeper to understand the key action points for companies when it comes to closing the skills gap and thriving in the new normal. Watch this space for more.

 

Author - Himanshu Agrawal

Global Delivery Head - Digital Engineering and Industry 4.0, Tech Mahindra

 

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