IT Staff of the Future

If even 25 percent to 50 percent of offshore work does go overseas by 2010, what will the future hold for IT professionals here?

Diane Morello, a vice president and research director at Gartner, predicts that those who remain in the field will become "IT versatilists, equally at ease with technical and business issues." Travis of AMR Research calls them 50/50 professionals. Fairchild Semiconductor’s Watkins brings up a similar picture: "The IT cohort of the future has to be a good technologist and protector of technology, but also be a savvy businessperson."

Will the IT professional of today want the position of tomorrow? Some will and some won’t. "The content of jobs is changing and will continue to," says David Foote, president of IT management consultancy Foote Partners. "A number of people I know who are really smart stopped working in IT when they realized what it would take to be this hybrid, versatile person. They’ve said, I’m not interested in being a [multitasking] Swiss Army knife. I want to be a big bowie knife."

Consider this hypothetical company in 2010, for example. Paul, the Cobol programming expert who once boasted that he spent all day every day for a year doing Y2K remediation, doesn’t work in the IT department anymore. He’s begun a second career as a carpenter and is actually enjoying spending more time with his family. At his old desk sits Bianca, who has an MBA from Boston University. Just back from a two-year stint at her company’s office in Ho Chi Minh City, Bianca has a meeting to discuss a business case for a joint marketing and IT project in the morning, and will review the post-implementation audit of the recent biometrics installation over lunch. In the afternoon, she has a Six Sigma class so that she can effectively manage the development of a CRM project at the company’s Chinese outsourcer.

Like Bianca, the IT applicants of tomorrow will have to position themselves differently. "I tell my students that the job market is forevermore global, not local," says Venkatraman, who advises his protŽgŽs to consider taking a position in Ireland or India or China if only for the sheer market value of global experience. "You may think there’s a shortage of your skills locally, but companies aren’t going to look at local value alone anymore. You need to compete globally."

Despite downward pressure on U.S. IT salaries (the average compensation for tech workers grew just 1.7 percent from 2001 to 2002, while inflation was 2.2 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute), experts expect wages to stabilize. But IT workers hoping for the fat paychecks and big bonuses of the past will be sorely disappointed. Normal cost-of-living increases and enough lift to keep up with other corporate positions are more likely, agree Intel CIO Busch and SIM’s Markle.

Future of Jobs

What Jobs Will Go
When it comes to the future of American IT staff, past is prologue. The current trend toward sending some IT work offshore actually began a decade ago, when stateside outsourcing began to gain favor. Companies such as Xerox inked multimillion dollar deals sending their IT work out the door to outsourcers. Some believed that the rise of the EDSs and CSCs would mean the fall of the in-house IT staff. That didn’t happen, but today, with offshore outsourcing, IT workers are not simply shifting employers but in many cases losing their jobs altogether. And at many levels -- lower-end programming, call center tasks, system maintenance and help desk work -- that trend will continue.

"Commoditized work will go overseas," says Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "Some more creative work -- like non-commodity one-off and unique projects -- will go overseas. But where interface with the business is important, that work will remain here."

It’s hard to argue for keeping certain IT work stateside. The salary for a programmer with two to three years of experience averages $7,500 in India, according to NeoIT, an offshore consultancy. In Russia, it’s $10,000. In the United States, it’s $65,000. India graduates 75,000 computer scientists each year. The United States, 52,900. China, which currently brings 50,000 new IT workers into the world every year, could eventually provide 200,000 computer science graduates annually, according to Marty McCaffrey, executive director of Software Outsourcing Research.

Bandwidth costs have declined dramatically and should continue to dip, furthering the beneficial cost structure of transoceanic work.

"What will continue to go overseas are the repetitive activities, the things that will ultimately be automated anyway," says Nancy Markle, president of the Society for Information Management (SIM) and former Arthur Andersen CIO. "We have to be able to continue to get the best prices, or else we’ll be growing companies offshore instead of competing with the rest of the world."


What Jobs Will Stay
By 2008, the IT workforce situated in the United States will be 25 percent smaller than it is today, according to Gartner. But the workers who remain will be more important to the business than ever. They’ll be working on architecture, strategy, project management and business processes, predicts Lance Travis, vice president of outsourcing strategics for AMR Research.

"A standardized problem can be solved anywhere," says N. Venkatraman, chairman of Boston University School of Management’s IS department. "But if you need to understand the business and create value, you must be here. It’s very difficult to understand the business context of IT remotely." Supporting a new product launch, for example, requires close observation and fast response --both impossible if the work is done halfway around the globe.

"If it can be codified, it can be done remotely and supported by IT," says Travis. "If it is still tacit and requires a lot of unstructured discussion, then it must be done here."

That need to keep certain activities close to home is one reason why many high-level IT jobs will remain in the United States. Speed and ease of management are two other factors. "Offshore outsourcing ultimately represents a certain loss of control," says Travis. "It is very dependent on the ability to manage relationships, and you always give up some agility." When CIOs outsource development to India, for example, it’s much harder to make changes to projects. "Anything beyond the scope of the project is impossible, unless you want to pour more money into it," says Travis.

Infrastructure, security, communication and project management issues already erode some of the cost advantage of offshoring, says Larry Pickett, CIO of Purdue Pharma. If CIOs try to go further up the value chain -- sending high-level consulting services elsewhere, IT will be even more difficult to manage, he says.

The IT department at Sun Microsystems is a test case for the future. "I have a staff of IT people around the world," CIO H. William Howard says, rattling off cities from Bangalore to Beijing where his IT staff resides. "Any large company is going to position their workers where the talent exists at the best price." Howard employs about 75 percent of the IT staff he used to. By 2010, he expects to outsource 50 percent of noncore activities. He adds, "Does that mean everything will be offshore? No. The things that are core, that are tightly tied to business process and the local business community, won’t."

However, John Watkins, CIO of Fairchild Semiconductor, views IT as an enabler of his business and only offshores on a limited, case-by-case basis. "It’s that intellectual capital we need to protect, especially when you’re as integrated in business processes as IT should be," he says.

Similarly, Cingular CIO Thaddeus Arroyo sends 10 percent of his IT work (mostly maintenance work) offshore. But he retains a U.S. staff to keep "new and more complex development close," from application development related to business process improvement to the integration and customization of off-the-shelf software. Arroyo makes these decisions project-by-project, considering such factors as capability and capacity of his U.S. workforce, the strategic nature of the work, and how closely tied a specific project is to other enterprise applications within the company. And by 2010, he says, CIOs will need to be even more judicious about what they send out the door.

"As we come out of the downturn, there will be even more potential for IT to become the business differentiator," says Arroyo. "Offshore outsourcing simply allows us to remain productive so we can deliver innovation here." In addition, the inevitable rise in labor costs in India, Russia and elsewhere could further reduce the cost advantages of offshoring.

The future of IT--2

While the nation's economy is soaring high on the growth front, the Indian IT industry bows in thanks and is getting all geared up for an even brighter future. The first step towards this has already been taken.

Though Open Source technologies entered the nation to a lukewarm welcome it has been doing really well for the past few years. With over 80 per cent companies moving from Proprietary Technologies to Open Source, the future seems almost predictable. Open Source Technologies provide flexibility, customisation, ease of development and security to the companies. Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle Corporation are amongst the few to have taken the lead.

With the growing demand for qualified and trained professionals touching an all time high, it is sad to see how little progress the IT Education sector has been making.

Addressing the talent shortage, equipping students with open source while also developing their soft skills — all seem to be problems the IT education sector has to devise solutions for.

NACE Solutions (P) Ltd, however seem to have found a solution. Having its centres in Chennai and Hyderabad, NACE has recently forayed into Bangalore. They not only offer Proprietary Technologies such as C, C++, JAVA, J2EE, J2ME, .NET and Data Warehousing but also offer Open Source Technologies to their students. They point out that their flagship course, LAMP a combination of Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, is the alternative technology in lieu of Microsoft .NET and Sun Java.

NASSCOM has estimated that India's requirement for software professionals will be 2.3 million by 2010. Based on the current supply, they predict that the country will face a shortage of 0.5 million skilled workers.

To cope with this problem, NACE has devised a syllabus that lays more importance on practical training while not forgetting the basic theory.

Although, NIIT and Aptech have carved a niche in the field of IT education, the needs of the industry are changing. NACE, having accepted the change, has grown along with it, says a spokesperson.

Age of Finishing Schools
Initially the need for finishing schools was felt when students who gained technical training from training centres were found to be lacking in soft skills. Also since companies today crave for professionals who have received training according to their unique requirements. Hence the only option the companies were left with was to either train probable employees in their office premises or cut the cost and establish a franchise with ‘Finishing Schools’
According to NACE, to cut down this deployable time companies tie-up with finishing schools. While the Government of Karnataka has opened many finishing schools, from which over 40,000 professionals gain training every year, there are also many private owned finishing schools.

NACE, offers individual training as well as corporate training, hence accomplishing the purpose of a finishing school as well. Of the nine centres planned in Bangalore, the upcoming one in Jayanagar is a finishing school that they plan to start soon.

Also recently, many Online Finishing Schools (OFS) are coming up to empower students with the necessary skills while completing their studies itself. Mindlogicx recently launched one such OFS aiming at increasing the employability quotient of the final year students.

The skill gap is hence being filled and probable employees amongst the general student population are being trained effectively.

2010: The Future of Jobs and Innovation

Even though some IT jobs will continue to move overseas by 2010, the United States will still have a sizable population of IT professionals doing high-level work on strategy, implementation and design.

By the year 2010, Intel CIO Doug Busch envisions himself managing an IT staff that’s all over the map, literally. Not only will his employees be working in places ranging from Rio Rancho, N.M., to Parsippany, N.J., in the United States, they’ll also reside in Beijing, Leixlip, Haifa, Penang and a host of other locations Busch has never even been to. Each spot will specialize in a particular area of expertise for the company’s IT department -- call centers in Manila, business analysis at company headquarters in Santa Clara, application development in Mumbai. And a full roster of career opportunities -- from entry level to senior leadership -- will exist at each and every location.

"Talent will rise to the top, wherever it is," Busch predicts.

Busch’s scenario may sound a bit like corporate IT’s version of "It’s a Small World." But the CIO of the world’s leading computer chip maker already oversees IT workers in 27 countries around the globe. And most CIOs (to differing degrees) are headed in that direction.

The part of the picture that strays furthest from Disneyland is what this means for American IT staff. Even without offshore outsourcing, U.S. IT staffing levels were never going to return to their prerecession highs. The automation of tasks, increased productivity and a reluctance to return to the unfettered IT budgets of yore pretty much guarantee that the demand for American IT professionals is destined to decline. But, incendiary conjectures to the contrary, the entire population of IT workers in this country will not be replaced by counterparts in emerging economies.

Instead, even as 2010 will see a further movement of some IT activities -- application development, legacy maintenance, call center operations -- overseas (Forrester Research estimates that the cumulative number of IT jobs heading abroad will grow from 27,171 in 2000 to 472,632 in 2015), U.S.-based companies will keep work here that requires close contact with the business: strategy development, business process improvement and the actual application of IT to the business.

The net result: There will still be a future in IT for smart young Americans. But the higher-level IT positions that remain stateside will require new skills. Today’s CIOs would be wise to encourage broader business education in U.S. IT degree programs. And increased government and corporate support of IT R&D will be critical to retaining America’s position as the world’s IT leader.

Perspectives of the IT Organization and the CIO

CIOs and their IT organizations play a central role in the demand for IT consulting. In our discussions with a number of leading CIOs about their impact on the shape of the IT industry, six themes emerged:

1. IT is now an established function in the structure of most organizations. For many years, the IT function was the "new kid on the administrative block." In that tenuous capacity as a newcomer, it was necessary and appropriate to use resources and expertise from outside the company. It was natural for companies to rely on outside sources for guidance on key design and investment decisions and for resource capacity itself. This reliance helped fuel the growth of IT services. Now that a strong IT function is accepted as central to a healthy company as are the HR, Finance or Purchasing functions, the degree of reliance on outside support is both sharpened and diminished.

2. The roles of IT in some companies are being redefined by the nature of what remains to be done after everything else is outsourced. Not everyone is convinced that this IT function design by "default" is a good thing. For example, one CIO sees establishing the "information backbone" of the company as about all that is left after outsourcing maintenance of the data-center, running of the network and programming. This CIO will not outsource ownership of design or maintenance of the so-called information backbone because he believes that the ability to do that is central to the competitiveness of the company.

3. As an established function, IT in the company now has more degrees of freedom to source services for highly specific purposes and value. One CIO describes the IT organization of the future as consisting of the following:

• Business analysis to understand the needs of the businesses
• Technical architecting to oversee and interface between IT and business systems
• Project management to implement change consistent with the practices of the company
• Management of IT processes

For each of these four capabilities, this CIO easily identifies the IT consulting outsiders who currently provide that service to his corporation. And, he states that his strategy aims to steadily bring more capability on the first three into his own organization. He prefers that these capabilities reside in his organization and then, by default, go to the outside if he has no alternative.

4. CIOs have migrated from being mainly IT technical experts to participating in high-level dialogue about the strategic direction of the company. For example, the views of the CIO may be central to design or re-design of the business model or significant in assessing the viability and future value of a major acquisition. One CIO told us, "If you have good people in the IT organization, they are good partners with the businesses." In the past, consultants helped bridge the needs of the businesses and the capabilities of IT. As an established strategy partner with business and corporate executives, the CIO and staff satisfy many of the IT-related strategy needs that IT consultants satisfied in the past.

5. Many CIOs say they will do less outsourcing in the future. This is driven by several factors, including a decrease in the number of new, "gorilla" ERP and CRM initiatives and the increasing need for rapid and flexible modifications to existing systems. What they do outsource will be the "body shop" activity when they need more capacity, but they plan to keep the deeper expertise in their companies.

6. Off-shore suppliers are providing an increasing share of IT services for activities such as coding. These are companies like Infosys, Syntel and WiPro. They market and deliver services on line and are viewed as providing rapid response, high quality, and low-cost service. One CIO told us, "...typically the outsource company will have 60% of their people on a project offshore and the other 40% at our location." These offshore providers were 50% of the cost of the large, U.S. IT consultants.

The Future of IT Consulting

The explosion of "computer-to-computer" communication in the twenty-first century is triggering a growth phase for IT consultants. Harvard Business School professor Richard Nolan and HBS Interactive Senior Vice President Larry Bennigson trace the evolution of IT management consulting.

Johnston: Your research refers to the PC in the 80's and the Internet in the 90's as triggers of explosive growth for the IT consulting industry. Have you identified a third trigger for this decade?

Nolan and Bennigson: The trigger in this decade underlying autonomous computing is "computer-to-computer" communication. By the end of the decade, more than 60 percent of the computer communications will be computer-to-computer. Computer-to-computer vastly speeds up the pace of business. For example, end-to-end supply chains can be automatically adjusted by point-of-sale computers directly communicating with warehouse computers, which in turn directly communicate with manufacturer computers, and, again in the chain, manufacturers' computers directly communicate with their supplier computers. In addition, computer-to-computer communications can track demand and adjust logistic systems to automatically direct product to geographical points of demand.

Q: Can you describe some of the enablers and drivers behind the growth of the IT consulting industry? How has globalization impacted this growth?

A: The enablers and drivers of growth of the IT (see working paper excerpt) consulting industry have been several. First, innovation in frameworks and methodologies along with trained professionals have provided value-added services uniquely available from the consulting firm. For example, the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey innovated unique conceptual frameworks for assisting management in sorting out action plans for their various lines of business.

By the end of the decade, more than 60 percent of the computer communications will be computer-to-computer.
— Nolan and Bennigson

Newness and complexity have been a second driver. Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, has provided expertise in designing and coding complex computer applications. SAP and Seibel have developed unique package software, and have provided specialized consulting services to assist in the implementation of the package software.

A third driver has been the building to critical mass high levels of expertise not economical to maintain in a particular company. For example, computer security consulting requires a high level of expertise, which few firms can economically maintain in-house. By providing these kinds of services to many firms, critical mass can be maintained in the practice group, as well as ensure that the group stays on the leading edge of the subject matter.

Related to this third driver is the focus that a separate consulting firm can maintain in managing a highly talented group of knowledge workers. The management and incentive systems are quite different in a consulting firm than in, say, a product firm. Consequently, a product firm may not be attractive to various knowledge workers who prefer to work in the consulting environment.

A fourth driver is the demand for process and behavior change that IT implementation puts on most organizations. IT was not just a new technology. To capture the value IT represented, organizations had to address change in structure, culture, people, process, and leadership. Many organizations turned to the consulting industry for help in understanding and managing these significant changes.

Finally, the IT consulting industry enjoyed an unprecedented frenzy of convergence of 1) adoption of systems such as ERP and CRM; 2) management improvements such as BPRE; 3) problems to solve such as Y2K; and 4) new territory to pioneer such as e-business.

Q: Who are the current players who have successfully adapted to the changing IT environment? What is the key to their success?

A: In our working paper, we state that more than 50 percent of today's capital budgeting expenditures involve computing in one form or another. As a result of the pervasiveness of IT, literally all consulting firms have had to integrate IT expertise. Indeed, with the hyper growth during the 1990's, consulting is still in restructure mode.

A high degree of industry adaptation in the IT consulting industry will be required in the future.
— Nolan and Bennigson

Within this context, Accenture has continued to broaden their consulting service scope. Accenture has built an impressive education and training facility called St. Charles, outside of Chicago, which focuses on maintaining currency in the skill levels of their professionals, as well as providing a leading tool for equipping their professionals with the new skill required with emerging IT.

Another type of example is the IT product firms that incorporate certification and training for their own consultants, independent consultants, and customer professionals. Microsoft, Sun, and Novell are examples of these kinds of companies.

Q: What are your predictions for the future of IT management consulting?

A: We believe that the recent restructuring in the IT management consulting industry is a point of industry transition. That transition coincides with the emergence of new drivers of IT management consulting growth. While the transition is still being played out, we can see some of these new drivers taking shape.

Until recently, there had been an IBM de facto industry standard for the operating system, and a de facto standard in the use of COBOL for applications development. By the late 1990's, new applications development had become almost exclusively supplanted by package implementation. In addition, networking and the Internet moved the IT infrastructure for the IBM standard to an emerging environment characterized by open standards.

Accordingly, the IT infrastructure became simpler and more complex at the same time through the innovation of layers and API's (Application Programming Interfaces). The implication for IT management consulting is a rather complex demand to provide both strategic perspective along with implementation savvy on managing the considerable risks of not being able to realize the strategic competitive advantages of computing because of failures to effectively manage implementation challenges.

Further, within the context of the management challenges of balancing strategic opportunities with implementation capabilities, there are dampening forces on industry growth. For example, the wave of ERP installations and BPRE projects is now beyond its peak. While outsourcing is still an established practice, companies have gained experience and can now do much more for themselves that they have looked to outsiders to do in the past. Managers know more about IT, more about the business and organizational potential and implications of IT and more about designing their own backbone and architecture.

We think it is important that it is tempting but risky to completely turn over IT initiatives to IT consulting firms.
— Nolan and Bennigson

And, there are forces that will drive new demand. Security is fast becoming a ubiquitous issue. The Internet will experience dramatic growth in Asia and Europe. New applications such as bioinformatics and telematics create new consulting segments. And the adoption of Internet2 will eventually have broad impact.

IT consulting, as much as any product or service, creates its own demand. A high degree of industry adaptation in the IT consulting industry will be required in the future. By introducing innovations and educating the market about the competitive benefits of those innovations, IT consulting invents and "earns" its opportunities for growth. This ability of IT consulting to lead and to adapt is a key to its robust development.

Q: What lessons can operations managers take away from your research?

A: There are a number of lessons we think are important for operations managers:

Many functional and business leaders have become conversant about IT and many IT specialists have become knowledgeable about the strategic and business benefits of IT. Companies that encourage and incorporate this integrated and more sophisticated capability within their organizations will have an edge over those that have to rely on outsiders for the integrated view.

The rate of change in IT capabilities is a companion to the rate of change most companies experience in other technologies, markets, and initiatives of competitors. We have noted that the successful IT consulting firm must be able to anticipate, sense, and nimbly respond to change. This is equally true for operations. Operations managers face the daunting task of implementing new IT capabilities while ensuring they are also prepared for the next version or generation.

The emerging IT environment is at a level of complexity such that efforts to build IT infrastructure and integrated applications require specialized expertise that is often available only in IT consulting firms. Good operations managers will ensure that their organizations have the ability to work effectively with and integrate the value from networks of service providers with a variety of special capabilities.

Finally, we think it is important that it is tempting but risky to completely turn over IT initiatives to IT consulting firms. A significant number of your own IT professionals and users should be included in integrated IT initiatives.

Information Technology Faqs

Q1.What is the future of IT industry in India ?
Q2.What are the Educational Courses and List of Institutes?
Q3.What is the Nature of Jobs ?
Q4 What is the remuneration in each field?
Q5.What are the Emerging Technologies ?
Q6.What is the Future Scenario ?

Q1.What is the future of IT industry in India ?
A1.According to leading reports, Indian software industry is set to achieve a turnover of 10 billion dollars by the year 2005. The projected demand for trained I.T. professionals is estimated at over 400,000 per year. There is a clear imbalance between the demand and supply of IT professionals with the result that this sector offers one of the highest remuneration packages. The Internet is a new revolution that is sweeping the world. It promises to change the way we work, live, shop, communicate and entertain ourselves.

Q2.What are the Educational Courses and List of Institutes?
A2. Most engineering colleges offer a B.E. / B.tech in computer engineering. For more information on Computer Engineering, please refer to the section under engineering. Other computer courses offered by universities include: B.Sc. (Computer) also known as B.C.S (Bachelor of Computer Science) M.C.A. (Master of Computer Applications) M.C.M. (Master of Computer Management) D.C.A. (Diploma in Computer Applications) D.C.E. (Diploma in Computer Engineering) D.C.S. (Diploma in Computer Science)

With the info tech boom, hundreds of private computer institutes have opened up across the country. The courses conducted by these institutions range from computer fundamentals to advanced computer languages. However there are no standards of teaching and course content and the quality of students differs considerably from institute to institute. Department of Electronics Accreditation of Computer Courses (DOEACC) Under this scheme there are four level of courses. These are : "O" Level - Foundation Level This would certify the candidate's competence as a programmer assistant or equivalent level. It is visualized as the lowest rung and the course, and should be at least a full-time one-year course. Students from accredited institutes can apply for this examination after completing their 101 Level course if they have 10+2 or I.T.I. certificate equivalent qualification.

Direct applicants need one year relevant experience (which signifies job experience in information Technology (IT) including teaching in a recognised institution) or a pass in the NCVT-DP & CS (Data Preparation and Computer software) Examination, besides 10+2 or equivalent qualification. 'A' level (advanced diploma level) This will give proof of the candidate's skills as a programmer. It should be equivalent to full-time studies of an average student for a year. Those who have done 'O' level and graduation followed by an accredited "A" level course are eligible. In the case of direct applicants, candidates with 'O' level and graduation and with one year relevant experience are eligible. A Government recognized polytechnic engineering diploma + A level course fulfils the eligibility. 'B' level (Graduate level) This will give certification to the candidate for proficiency as a systems analyst or software designer or engineer as the case may be. The course duration at the approved institute should be equivalent to a three year, full-time course. Graduates and government recognised polytechnic diploma holders. 'B' Level candidates who have completed the accredited 'B' Level course are eligible. In case of direct applicants, students with Level 'A' followed by two years) relevant experience and graduates with three years relevant experience are eligible.

Governments recognized PPDCA / PGDCA accords exemption from some courses. 'C' Ievel (master degree level) This will recognize the candidates proficiency as a systems manager. The course duration at the recognized institute should be equivalent to a full-time 18 months course. Candidates with Level 'B' or B.Tech./B.E./M.C.A./M.Sc./Master's degree (in maths/statistics/operations re-search)/M.B.A. (after B.Sc./B.A. with Maths) followed by an accredited 'C' Level course are eligible. In case of direct applicants, candidate with Level 'B'/B.Tech/ B.E' /M.C.A./Master's degree (in Maths/ GATE (computer) Statistics/ Operation Research)/M.B.A. (after B.SC., B.A. with Maths) followed by 18 months relevant experience in each case are eligible. Registration is a prerequisite for taking the examination. At any point of time, a candidate can register only at one level. The registration is valid for five years.

Contact Address- DOEACC Control Centre, c/o Manpower Development Division, Department of Electronics, Electronics Niketan (2nd Floor), 6 Lodhi Road, CGO Complex, New Delhi.

Industry Certified Courses Global infotech majors including Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, IBM etc have come out with their own certification programs which provide an indicator of the proficiency levels of candidates with those certifications and are recognised world wide. The certifications from Microsoft include MCSE - Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer MCP - Microsoft Certified Professionals MCSD - Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer. Microsoft has authorised several computer institutes to provide training for these certifications and the examination is conducted by Microsoft itself. Candidates who are successful in the test are globally recognised as proficient in the corresponding Microsoft technologies. Similar certifications are also offered by other companies.

Q3.What is the Nature of Jobs ?
A3. Introduction With the advent of the PC the information technology industry underwent a quantum change. Suddenly computers were all pervasive and work automation took off in a big way. The software revolution totally changed the way we work. Availability of cheap and easy to use software packages increased productivity levels manifold. Probably no sector is untouched by information technology. Manufacturing, Finance, Banking, Marketing, Entertainment, Education and several other fields are reaping the benefits of I.T. As a result the I.T industry employs not only staff trained in computers but also professionals from all other fields which could also be non-technical in nature. The rapid development of technologies such as networking, multimedia and the Internet have created totally new job categories where none existed a few years ago. This sector is also the one that is witnessing the fastest growth and change rate. New software and techniques come out every month and professionals have to keep pace with the rapid advancements. The hardcore technical jobs in the IT industry can broadly be classified as hardware jobs and software jobs. Non technical jobs include functional expert consultants, web designers, data entry professionals etc. Hardware Jobs Software Jobs Specialised Jobs Internet Related Jobs Multimedia Jobs

Q4 What is the remuneration in each field?
A4. Hardware Jobs Remuneration - Rs. (per annum) VLSI Design Engineers 1,20,000 upwards Production 60,000 – 3,00,000 Maintenance 36,000 – 96,000 Networking 72,000 upwards (entry level) Software Jobs Programmers 84,000 – 3,00,000 (entry level) Project Leaders 2,00,000 – 6,00,000 System Analysts 3,00,000 upwards Senior Managers 4,00,000 upwards Specialised Applications CAD/CAM 72,000 – 2,40,000 ERP 2,40,000 upwards Internet Related Webmasters 1,20,000 upwards (entry level) Web Designers 84,000 upwards (entry level) Web Application Developers 1,20,000 upwards (entry level) Multimedia DTP operators 30,000 upwards (entry level) Computer Animators 60,000 upwards (entry level) CD-ROM developers 96,000 upwards (entry level) Video/Audio Editors 84,000 upwards (entry level)

Q5.What are the Emerging Technologies ?
A5.E-commerce The Internet revolution is sweeping the world and is changing the way companies traditionally dealt with customers. Now customers can compare and shop without moving out of their homes by using the Internet. Electronic commerce relates to all commercial transactions that take place through the Internet. It is estimated that the quantum of e-commerce will jump to 400 billion US dollars by the year 2001. In order to enter this field, in addition to a basic degree in computer science/engineering one must have sound knowledge of software used in the front end such as Java, DHTML, Visual basic etc, the backend which is generally databases such as Oracle and SQL server as well as networking and web server maintenance. In addition an understanding of business transactions is also essential.

Supply Chain Management In any industry there are lot of vendors providing various material inputs used in final production. On the distribution side there are channels comprising of wholesalers, distributors and retailers. Supply chain management software cuts down the time taken for the supplies to arrive from the vendor and reduces the inventory levels thus cutting cost. On the marketing side, it ensures that products reach the end customers in time to fulfill their demand.

Customer Relationship Management Companies offering products and services have to deal with a number of customers. Customer relationship management software provides a record of all previous dealings with customers so that the company personnel can take the right decision while dealing with them.

Q6.What is the Future Scenario ?
A6.According to leading reports, Indian software industry is set to achieve a turnover of 10 billion dollars by the year 2005. The projected demand for trained I.T. professionals is estimated at over 400,000 per year. There is a clear imbalance between the demand and supply of IT professionals with the result that this sector offers one of the highest remuneration packages. With the Internet rapidly changing the way we live, shop, entertain and work there is a tremendous scope for entrepreneurs with radical new in this field.