Outsourcing Toolkit

Indian CIOs face skills shortage

Published: 12 Jun 2007 09:26 BST

Indian chief information officers must consider offshoring as the country is hit by an IT skills shortage.

The offshoring hotspot is also facing "second-class" treatment from local service providers that are eating up the country's skilled IT resources, according to analyst house Gartner.

Linda Cohen, vice president and distinguished analyst for Gartner's IT sourcing group, said local service providers are not allocating enough quality resources for Indian customers and typically give the best resources to global customers, which pay in dollars and yield better margins.

India has a "severe shortage of skilled IT resources" at all staffing levels, Cohen added.

As businesses demand more from their IT departments, Indian chief information officers need increasingly to offshore IT roles to manage the skills shortage, according to Gartner.

Arup Roy, senior research analyst for Gartner's IT services market group, said Indian companies will increasingly source IT skills from Hong Kong and Singapore.

Indian chief information officers need to invest heavily in training and develop programmes to retain the talent they have, and start recruiting from alternative local sources — such as from small and medium-sized cities, Gartner recommends.

Last year, the head of India's IT trade body, Nasscom, said the country will suffer a severe IT skills shortage by 2010.