Technology services industry lobby Nasccom would push for faster adoption of its Future Skills initiative and deep technology work by member companies to drive growth, said Keshav Murugesh , Nasscom chairman and chief executive officer of WNS. As the $167-billion IT-BPM sector witnesses more client organisations seeking digital technology-led services, IT services and BPM companies see higher demand for talent with skills such as data science, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Nasscom last year started the Future Skills platform, opening up opportunities for the member companies to get their employees trained in emerging technology skills. The platform offers training in areas such as internet of things (IoT), robotic process automation (RPA), virtual reality, big data analytics, cloud computing and 3D printing. “From my point of view, faster absorption of the Future Skills programme is main priority. Continue to push the deep tech priority areas within and making sure Nasscom becomes a household name like Amazon or Uber in India as technology becomes more relevant in day-to-day life. These are three-four key priority areas,” Murugesh said.
He said the industry body would continue to push “strong” policy advocacy. Murugesh, who was elected as the chairman early this month, said customers of IT-BPM sectors are not worried about an economic slowdown, and WNS is seeing a strong pipeline ahead. “Irrespective of how the economy performs, we believe that individual companies will have to push ahead with decision making and transform their business models to remain relevant. We do not see any negative impact from those (macroeconomic) trends,” he said. Citing WNS’ double-digit revenue guidance at the midpoint for FY20 (8-13% growth) he said CEOs of its customers are not concerned and focusing on digital transformation. More IT services and business process management companies such as WNS are pivoting their model of services to meet the changing demand. Given this transition, the industry body sees a bigger role in policy advocacy and supporting the transformation. Murugesh said Nasscom would continue to run all its strategic programmes and ‘continue to be the key industry body that is positively impacting India’s IT-BPM industry’.
