Big Salary Hikes In Store For IT Execs
“It looks like a talent war among the IT companies, where people hold multiple job offers and try to select the best firm. And companies are also making efforts to select best talent pool for their requirements,” said Sunil Goel, Director,GlobalHunt, an executive search firm.
Echoing similar view, staffing services firm Manpower India Head (Sales and Marketing), Namr Kishore said, “In India, demand far outstrips genuine qualified supply. Companies are vying for the best talent and are ready to offer hefty packages for the same, luring the employees to switch jobs at a swift pace.”
Wage hikes have been very good in IT companies this year. It has been 15-25 per cent. And for niche and critical skills, companies have given 30-45 per cent hikes while recruiting or retaining talent for specific projects.
“The trends seen so far is as per expectation and after tier one companies having set the expectation other companies can do not much but follow the trend to a large extent,” said Thammaiah B N, Director, India Kelly IT Resources, Kelly Services, a global workforce player.
Thammaiah said he expects hikes in the range of 10-15 per cent broadly, and around 20 per cent for niche skills or business critical roles.
Experts said that such high salary hikes by IT companies will be sustainable at least for the next few quarters as firms usually deliver projects through a mix of freshers and experienced resources.
Besides, they added, not all employees receive such hikes. Only the top performers do, rest employees get around 8-10 per cent hike.
Profitability of most Indian software companies are likely to come down to 15-20 per cent, which are international standards, from present 25-30 per cent. But the fact that these companies are regularly bagging huge projects might help them sustain the current profitability, Kishore said.
“Attrition has become the DNA, which is required from both the sides. If IT professionals do not change jobs and upgrade themselves as per latest technology, then they may get outdated. The same applies to the companies too, if they do not innovate model and market themselves, they may get outdated,” Goel said.
Infosys Raises Outsourcing Concerns
NEW YORK: Country’s second largest software exporter Infosys has raised concerns that negative sentiment about outsourcing in various countries, including the US and the UK, could hurt its business prospects.
In recent times, there has been increasing criticism about outsourcing in many developed markets, especially in the wake of huge job losses due to sluggish economic activities.
“Recently, some countries and organisations have expressed concerns about a perceived association between offshore outsourcing and the loss of jobs,” Infosys said in a recent filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Legislation in certain countries in which we operate, including the US and the UK, may restrict companies in those countries from outsourcing work to us or may limit our ability to send our employees to our client sites,” it noted.
This comes close on the heels of Infosys announcing less than expected financial performance last month, with a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,818 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2011.
For the year ended March 31, the IT bellwether posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 6,823 crore, up nearly 10 per cent over the year-ago period.
Infosys expects revenue in the range of Rs 7,311-7,382 crore for the quarter ending June 30, 2011, and in the range of Rs 31,727- Rs 32,270 crore for the financial year FY’12.
Voicing concerns, the software exporter in the filing cautioned that there could be a change in existing laws or enactment of new legislation restricting offshore outsourcing.
The Governor of the State of Ohio had recently prohibited governmental entities from using public funds for offshore services.
According to Infosys, it is possible that private sector firms working with these governmental entities may be restricted from outsourcing projects or may even face disincentives if they outsource certain operations.
“If either the US federal government or another governmental entity acquires an equity position in any of our clients, any resulting changes in management or reorganisations may result in deferrals or cancellations of projects or delays in purchase decisions…,” the filing said.
Now Charge Your Phone By Just Talking
LONDON: In what is being billed as a godsend for those who regularly suffer the frustration of flat batteries, Korean scientists have devised a gadget that will allow mobile phones to be recharged by using only your voice.
The technology turns sound into electricity, allowing a mobile to be powered up while a conversation is in progress – and the greater the volume the greater the charge, reports the Daily Mail.
But there are fears it will simply be an excuse for inconsiderate phone-users to make even more annoyingly noisy calls in public places. The technology could also be used to power up personal music players, raising the possibility of charging an iPod by singing along to your favourite songs.
Sang-Woo Kim, of Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea, said that just as speakers transform electric signals into sound, the opposite process of turning sound into a source of electrical power is possible.
Kim’s device uses tiny strands of zinc oxide – the main ingredient of calamine lotion – sandwiched between two electrodes. A sound-absorbing pad on top vibrates when sound waves hit it, causing the tiny zinc oxide wires to compress and release.
This generates electrical current that can then be used to charge a battery.
Devices made so far can convert sounds of around 100 decibels, the equivalent of noisy traffic, a passing train or a nearby lawnmower, into a mild electrical current.
While this is not yet enough to charge a phone properly, the engineers are hopeful that altering the material the wires are made from will allow them to produce more energy at lower sound levels.