BANGALORE/MUMBAI: Institutes that provide training in the hottest new technology areas—cloud computing, mobile and data analytics— are growing in prominence to cater to demand from software companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro.
The mushrooming of niche technology training centres is not unlike what happened more than decades ago which resulted in companies like NIIT and Aptech becoming household names.
This phenomenon is being driven by the shift that is taking place in the information technology industry where traditional services are being supplemented rapidly by those which take advantage of ubiquitous, fast internet access and the rising popularity of mobile devices.
“We have recorded phenomenal growth in demand,” said Gaurav Vohra, founder of Jigsaw Academy, an online training institute that specialises in analytics. The three-year-old venture began in Bangalore by training about eight students a month.
Today, it enrolls 125 students a month. Jigsaw’s alumni now work at top IT firms like Infosys and Genpact as well as core analytics providers such as Fractal Analytics.
The demand is huge. While India alone will require at least one lakh cloud computing professionals by 2015, globally there will be a shortage of some 2 lakh data analysts by 2019, according to a study by EMC and Zinnov.
All of this taking place when large Indian IT companies have slowed down their pace of hiring from engineering colleges.
They are doing so amid rising levels of automation for routine, repetitive tasks. In 2013-14, software industry grouping Nasscom estimates that 1.5 lakh graduates will be hired by the industry, compared to 1.8 lakh in the previous year.
Koenig Solutions, based in Delhi, is among those which has been a beneficiary of the technology shift. It has partnered with cloud computing softwaremaker VMware to train students in a technology which helps enterprises access their IT services through the internet.
Rohit Aggarwal, chief executive of the company, said his students have received offers from TCS, Infosys and IBM.
“Short-term training in hot skills is at an all-time high,” said Surabhi Mathur Gandhi, senior vice president at Teamlease, a staffing firm. “A lot of training institutions have started tying up with IT companies for post-placement opportunities.”
She said the reduction in campus hires has pushed students to join training institutes with placement cells. Other institutes that are making a mark in the new areas include RCV Innovations, Smarton, Equitor and Bites Academy.
India’s third-largest IT services firm, Wipro Technologies, which already has a team of 1,000 to work on these new technologies, is expected to hire more. “These skills are not available at the level of new engineering graduates,” said Deepak Jain, senior vice president and global head for workforce planning and development at Wipro. “We work with training institutes and our alliance partners for training on emerging technologies.”
In addition to traditional IT services companies, specialist providers of services such as cloud computing and data analytics are hiring in large numbers.
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