[am1m]

Originally Posted by dmplog

Industry is surviving purely because of cost arbitrage. In short cheap labour is what makes Indian IT 'tick'. The moment a cheaper location comes up that can offer good communication capability (say Philippines), our days will be numbered.

Yes, very true. My query was how do we manage to hold on to this cost advantage for so long? Costs must be rising exponentially each year here. I know for a fact that starting salaries have shot up across all roles. What I observe is that we still retain a significant cost advantage despite all that.

About the rise of an alternate outsourcing destination with good communication capabilities, again I've been hearing that for the past 10 years at least. It was China, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Slovakia (or Slovenia, I forget which ). Puzzling. At least to me.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by am1m

Yes, very true. My query was how do we manage to hold on to this cost advantage for so long? Costs must be rising exponentially each year here. I know for a fact that starting salaries have shot up across all roles. What I observe is that we still retain a significant cost advantage despite all that.

About the rise of an alternate outsourcing destination with good communication capabilities, again I've been hearing that for the past 10 years at least. It was China, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Slovakia (or Slovenia, I forget which ). Puzzling. At least to me.

Loss of India's cost advantage is very real, and it isn't just about cost anymore. That boat sailed a while ago when corporates realized while cheaper is better, cheapest can be a bigger headache than you bargained for.

China is significantly ramping up, and Philippines is picking up a lot of BPO & support work too. Most geographies are also trying to shift their offshore/remote work into nearby territories for better timezone compatibility (among other things), so EMEA is looking more and more to Egypt and Eastern Europe while Americas is setting up shop in LATAM (Latin America), for example.

Language barriers are going down, and having operations closer to base is not just cheap & efficient in the long run, it makes sense in many ways even if upfront cost is similar or slightly higher. Heck, my organisation set up two Remote Delivery Centers within the US last year, and ramping up aggressively.

India's trump cards were cheap English-speaking labor and investment incentives/tax holidays, neither of which is exclusive anymore.

We had a TWO decade head-start on everyone we're competing with today, and we blew it on staying put and pinching pennies instead of investing in maturing our workforce and delivery models, and now the competition has caught up and passing us by.

The slide is not in the future, it's here and we're already on it.

[blackstallion76]

Good conversations and enlightening. Surviving in the same boat of 15+ yrs experience.
Worked with teams in China and Philippines. They are very smart and good. But, english is the only issue when communicating with UK/US clients.
When in Chengdu/Shenzhen/Manila, I was surprised how the IT developers were maintaining good work life balance. No weekend working or extra hours.

So, whats next for 15+ yrs exp in IT? Curious to know.

[deehunk]

Originally Posted by blackstallion76

I was surprised how the IT developers were maintaining good work-life balance. No weekend working or extra hours.

How many hours do they spend on meetings in a week to educate their Managers? For people with poor technical skills, becoming a Manager or Lead is a way to avoid getting exposed. But when they become one they extract work from everyone and take cover from higher management to protect themselves. I have seen such people who called me for almost 2 years for small niggles even after I quit the job. It finally ended when I brought it to the notice of his supervisor.

[bluevolt]

Amidst of this discussion, I would like to take the opinion of fellow BHPians about the prospects of job profiles like Scrum Master, Scrum Product Owner and a Business Analyst in current and future IT industry scenario?

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Amidst of this discussion, I would like to take the opinion of fellow BHPians about the prospects of job profiles like Scrum Master, Scrum Product Owner and a Business Analyst in current and future IT industry scenario?

You'll have to add some context to that question to get anything more than a generic answer.

What level (entry-middle-senior-SME) are these roles? What time horizon (short-medium-long term), and what kind of industries (BPO-Product Development-Services) you're referring to. Impact varies, so does the magnitude of it depending on a bunch of factors, and some answers may just be up in the air at this point.

[Suryendu87]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Amidst of this discussion, I would like to take the opinion of fellow BHPians about the prospects of job profiles like Scrum Master, Scrum Product Owner and a Business Analyst in current and future IT industry scenario?

Would like to put my two cents on it.

Scrum being a methodology of Agile practice aims at building self- sufficient teams with Scrum Master and Product owner at their helm. Scrum master is also supposed to contribute to team's activities and deliverables.

With increasing adaptation to agile practices across organizations, holding expertise in one methodology might not be enough. As per my thought, one needs to learn on two or more methodologies like Scrum, Canban etc in addition to his current skill set to stay ahead.

Teams and their work practices vary from place to place and one needs to be knowledgeable enough to suggest suitable method for adapting agile principles.

[Sawyer]

I was a lateral entry into India's biggest IT services outfit in the late nineties; I left in two years once I realised that I was the classic square peg in the round hole. But I know a little about the industry, and what was top of the mind then for senior management - Moving Up The Value Chain, and Developing Products/IP. Written here in title case because of how often this was discussed as a survival requirement in strategy meetings while the mass was busy with Y2K fix coding jobs.

It took me by surprise to see the industry continue to flourish as long as it did for so long now, with these two issues still more discussed than achieved.

I think everyone made a mistake then in believing that the demand side of the business would shift quickly, but it clearly did not. It even grew to the extent of allowing the kind of inefficiencies that recent posts describe, to flourish.

So is the paradigm shift that will affect all - efficient and inefficient - around the corner finally? Will cloud+automation+similar radically reduce the demand for the kind of the work that the Indian IT industry has done well so far - all the inefficiencies notwithstanding?

Or is that shift still as theoretical/far away as the discussions about it in 2000 turned out to be?

That is the question that those in the industry at all levels should be concerned with - because the answer to it can result in the efficient also being bypassed because they have become irrelevant. And I like to think that the efficient/hard working is the much larger part of the people employed in IT.

[joe1980]

Originally Posted by SoumenD

In our case I don't think this rapidly changing industry will let us survive past 40-42, if I stick to technical stream.

If you don't stick to the technical stream, you might just run out of luck very soon. The whole bunch of middle management (or just people managers as I put it) in those big services companies are definitely at the highest risk!

I'm 15 years into the industry and one thing that I like is that I have the opportunity to constantly learn new things, because this is the nature of the industry we are in.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

I've seen colleagues leave, real good ones and critical contributors, and it may be my turn whenever the powers-that-be deem it necessary.

This phenomena took me by surprise too. I expected flab to be thrown out first, while real contributors get to stay around. But I made a miscalculation. While good contributors were busy doing real work, the flab was busy building relationships/equations with higher management via brown-nosing and talking in buzz words. So when the time has to tighten the belt, the flab is playing role of the executioner. The flab is targeting the real contributors for layoff because they are the threat. In most cases, I am seeing that the good guys are getting the boot.

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Someone in their 40s and a cushy job would be devastated now, but they should've seen this coming and hopefully built a buffer and alternatives. Some I know have, some will learn the hard way.

Unfortunately most of the IT services industry was in a bubble. It was impossible for them to see it like an outsider. As an outsider, I was openly saying that most IT guys overpaid even 10 years ago.

Originally Posted by Sawyer

Make in India is another smoke and mirrors slogan to hide the ground realities. India missed the manufacturing bus decades ago, by its poor infrastructure and expensive, low productivity workforce. The IT industry succeeded because its downstream delivery chain did not need roads/ports etc., and labour unions had no role to play.

Exactly. Industries grow when government offers least impediments. Since IT industry could upload their work, government couldn't play spoilsport like usual. But Make in India of non-software items will (already is) be a total failure because none of the government departments have released their strangle hold over movement of materials. We are at a stage of globalization, where any advanced product requires parts from multiple countries. If you strive to make every part in India, not only it will make the product costly, it may even suffer in quality. And to make every part in India, you may require advanced tools from abroad. If you try to build those tools in India, it may again make the venture even more expensive and suffer further loss in quality. We tried our hand in creating a hardware (Make in India) product, spent 3 times the invoice price to produce the item because of all the delays caused by various government departments. Customer was happy and offered another order. We declined and discontinued the product.

Originally Posted by luvDriving

Having worked abroad too in a team of developers from four different European countries, their work ethics and ability to segregate work and personal life amazes me. Even in product companies, the major chunk of work is done by the onsite team and the rest filters down to India.

So I think it is due to this reason that the show really goes on. Even if it is very profitable to get it done from India, it is mostly bug fixing, a small enhancement here and there and then positioning it as something very big that keeps the ball rolling. Couple this with the education system that we have and we are producing IT slaves year on year.

There are many world-class products that are designed and developed in India. But they are not the majority.

Originally Posted by dmplog

There is a dangerous precedence set by these IT Services companies to offer lead position to anyone who is 4-5 years old. So, the moment you make anyone a "lead", he stops coding thereby making him losing touch with his core competency. We don't seem to take pride in being technically involved and only want to be "Lead" or "Manager". Bulk of the work is carried out by the graduates and 1-3 year experienced programmers. As soon as these people are 4-5 years old, willingly or unwillingly, they get or ask for a lead role! And the story continues.

IT services is mainly a labour intensive activity, which requires little technical competence and massive administrative effort. These leads/manager mainly do clerical work of keeping track of activities. Calling them leaders or managers is a misnomer.

Originally Posted by am1m

About the rise of an alternate outsourcing destination with good communication capabilities, again I've been hearing that for the past 10 years at least. It was China, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Slovakia (or Slovenia, I forget which ). Puzzling. At least to me.

Yes, the India advantage is slipping away. Recently a former employee was visiting me after 5 years. He now works in Poland, mainly developing in C#. He told me that most techies there can manage English well, and the average programming skill is much higher compared to India. Then he said something that shocked everybody in our office. If he tries to work more than 8 hours a day, his supervisor gets irritated and asks him to leave for the day.

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Amidst of this discussion, I would like to take the opinion of fellow BHPians about the prospects of job profiles like Scrum Master, Scrum Product Owner and a Business Analyst in current and future IT industry scenario?

Discussion of scrum/agile might violate Rule#13.

[diyguy]

I've been in the industry since 1996. There is a lot of work for us Indians because in my personal experience I feel most US middle managers and technical leads just do not work. They are more than happy giving funding to three developers to do one US person's job. The economics works out, as with Indian efficiencies we get maybe 1.5-2 US person equivalent of work out of this. This will continue and I don't see this abating. Maybe the quantum of work will come down with automation but work will still continue.

[bluevolt]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Discussion of scrum/agile might violate Rule#13.

Pardon, but I could not get this. What's Rule#13?

[JayKis]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Amidst of this discussion, I would like to take the opinion of fellow BHPians about the prospects of job profiles like Scrum Master, Scrum Product Owner and a Business Analyst in current and future IT industry scenario?

Am in the same boat. Been a BA in IB for 12 years. Worked on waterfall till the last 10 and now in agile.

Somehow feel the golden age of IT BAs (only requirements and functional testing) are over and have to do both a BA & QA Role these days

In agile, there is no PM required and it is usually the BA who is made to step up to to do the Scrum Manager role (akin to PM).

So it has kind of become BA+QA+PM

Not a rosy picture at the moment

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Pardon, but I could not get this. What's Rule#13?

Agile/Scrum are now equivalent to a religion, and forum rules prohibit discussing religion.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Product Owner and a Business Analyst in current and future IT industry scenario?

Originally Posted by JayKis

So it has kind of become BA+QA+PM

In my opinion, this is a pretty good career path. Basically a "custodian" of Product and Business Functionality delivered by the product.

As more and more Products/Projects move up the value chain, domain knowledge becomes valuable. BA/PM (PM = Product Manager) becomes a crucial role by guiding rest of the Dev/Q/Support teams and getting rid of late-nigh calls.

Just do not get too tied to "trend de jour" like SCURM and others that will come and go. Just use them if it helps career in short term.