Gandhinagar International Financial Tec City

Gujarat is fast becoming the next ITeS (Information Technology enabled services) sector with national and international interests zoning in on the state to establish this industry. It seems as though the state has been undaunted in its efforts towards building better infrastructure, promoting business and increasing the standard of living, as its cities are becoming favour able environments to settle and start businesses and franchises. One such advantage of the state is its readily available technology Parks and SEZ. The Ahmedabad Gandhinagar knowledge corridor is also underway, and is an initiative that looks to connect the businessoriented capital of the state to the residential megacity, with the intention of making this a part of the state. Indeed one of the most expensive of all SEZ is the Gandhinagar International Financial Tec City (GIFT), which is proposed to be built in Gandhinagar. It is one of the heaviest projects taken not only by the state, but also the entire country, and aims towards connecting Gujarat to the world.

With a turnover of over 4,500 crores, the Information Technology and ICT industry is experiencing an unprecedented boom. Although Gujarat's technology sector is still finding its feet, it is one of the fields most heavily promoted by the state. It is propelling businesses and the state alike into prosperity, and is looking forward to a decade of prosperity and plenty. "Today, there are disruptive technologies that are becoming mainstreams to further add fuel to the fire, and these include mobility computing platforms, which were not envisioned as viewing platforms and interacting platforms with the enterprise database just a few years ago, but today call for the dire need to tackle database availability, security and modified workflow with the help of mobile applications for the enterprise side of things. Thus, there is an evergrowing demand of software programmers on the mobility platforms, and all this insatiable hunger for data, video and cloud computing is creating a huge demand for networking infrastructure and bandwidth," says Pratul Shroff, CEO and President, eInfochips.

Truly, ICT innovation has brought fundamental change to industry and commerce, with particular impact on ICT careers, skills and competency needs and education and training. "The new generation youngsters are the driving force behind the smooth running of today's BPO industry, but they can be difficult to manage and retain. We at Etech make the role attractive and promote benefits to get the best out of them by managing the factors which motivates the individual and incentivise accordingly. Additionally, we are engaging them by sharing our vision and rewarding productive behaviour early. We ensure good work never goes unnoticed and encourage plenty of opportunities to socialise, celebrate and make sure the workplace is as fun as possible. To promote diversity, we have made it as part of the culture where different business function areas work together. We allow our leadership to differ and share their differences with each other as that helps create a robust platform of having a diverse workforce with greater ease," says Matt Rocco, COO, Etech.

One of the major challenges of a sector such as Information Technologyand ITeS has always been the standardisation of workforces, and the knowledge of English and technology puts the students of Gujarat at par with the world. "The industry has grown  quickly and continues to be on a strong growth trajectory; therefore, manpower challenges continue to be at the heart of business challenges. Being prepared for 2012 we will require robust sourcing and talent management strategies to ensure the right people are attracted. Etech's talented team of recruiters push boundaries by applying the latest social media and aggressive direct sourcing techniques to build targeted talent silos that help our recruiters solve complex hiring problems fast and permanently. Etech utilises meaningful data and observations of our talent pool to filter out potential problem areas and find pockets of hidden talent within the area," adds Rocco.

Industry-relevant skills are promoted; resources are given to students and industries alike; case-tocase assistance is also provided as a means to make the transition between education and work smoother. "Given the scope it entails, the IT industry needs to have quality manpower. We need to create a talented faculty that is motivated and knowledgeable to impart quality education in the engineering colleges. Some of the existing technologies like eITRA (eInfochips Training & Research Academy), which offers something similar in the VLSI design courses, can be harnessed to scale up imparting education," adds Shroff.

Gujarat's population is largely young, with more than 60 per cent who are under 40, and is provided with resources necessary to complete an education in the Information Technologyand ITeS sector. One belief of the state has been to focus on the younger generations to promote industry. "Employee satisfaction, employee retention and employee development are going to be the major challenges for HR managers in the days to come in the BPO industry. Etech thinks HR has to become the epicenter of all activities taking place in the organisation instead of just being a facilitator. We always say that it is not monetary benefits, which retain most of the people; instead it is the relationship between them and their leaders, which actually helps," adds Rocco.

The ICT industry not only has the potential for job creation through the contact centres and other offshoring opportunities, but also creates higher value added and therefore higher income opportunities for the appropriately trained persons. "BPO professionals are exposed to several leading global and national brands, and gain an in-depth understanding of the industry in which their clients operate. This global exposure along with soft - skills training and the steady growth of the outsourcing industry, leads to excellent career development opportunities. In fact, most of our managers began their careers with us as customer support representatives," says Mr.KaushalMehta, Founder and CEO, Motif, Inc. As Gujarat becomes one of the most vied-for Information Technology and ICT hubs, the state also gains recognition from national and international authorities. With its gaining popularity, Gujarat will indeed soon be one of the most forward and business oriented states of the country.

Source: The Times of India