CIO & LEADER-Issue-06-September_iPad

EDITORIAL
Shyamanuja Das
shyamanuja.das@9dot9.in
Reskilling:
Why we
must avoid
misplaced
priorities?
T
We should
not confuse
between
reskilling
needs arising
because of
automation
and reskilling
needs arising
because of
changes in
technology
India is the global IT services hub. So, we get
to see many of the IT trends much before they
actually touch, let alone significantly impact,
our domestic businesses.
The early advent of hype around a technology
trend often creates so much confusion that
the enterprise IT departments end up having
misplaced priorities.
As my colleague Shubhra discusses the
challenges and opportunities associated with
IT reskilling, it is important to steer clear of
one such potential confusion—between the
reskilling needs created because of automation
and reskilling to remain competitive.
There is little doubt in anyone’s mind that
the latter is an imperative—more so in a fast
growing economy like India.
It is the former that needs a very careful
consideration. For the large offshore
IT industry in India, it is a huge challenge.
For one, it reduces the need for large manpower,
which is India’s major differentiator,
not to talk of cost. Two, going for large scale
automation replacing IT jobs means a large
redundant workforce, leading to layoffs.
Large scale mass layoffs are a big problem
to handle for the industry, where prime
capital is manpower. Indians are still sensitive
to retrenchment. In short, it is an issue to
deal with.
For enterprise IT, automation, if anything,
is an opportunity in the short to medium
run. With so much of cloud and outsourcing
already in place, impact on jobs will be only
marginal. In the long run, it may change the
dynamics of IT delivery itself and that may
require a completely different delivery model
but that is not happening anytime soon. For
the time being, automation is a clear opportunity
for the CIOs.
Having said that, reskilling cannot be
ignored as a priority. With new technologies
such as AI, IoT, data analytics and distributed
ledgers becoming mainstream, businesses
need large number of people with those skills.
More importantly, the new risks arising out
of cyber threats require a specially-skilled
army of fighters. That requires reskilling of
existing information security professionals.
All these are real needs.
We should not confuse between the two different
types of reskilling needs
September 2017 | CIO&LEADER
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