Cracks in Software Industry?

I have received good number of mails, especially from the college students in the last one week regarding the health of software industry. Its seems there is lot of talk going on in the colleges and what I see is lot of misinformation is getting propagated. Let me address all those students, here.

When we discuss this kind of issues, we should not mix objective facts with the subjective opinions. The fact is that the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) industry in the US is facing rough weather because of what is known as Sub Prime crises. Its not that important to understand the problem in greater detail. But, it is important to understand that money is what flows across all kinds of businesses and if there is a problem at some corner, it impacts the parts as well. The intensity and timing may be little different.

The impact of this turmoil in the US financial markets has its impact on IT industry as well. It’s in two different ways.

One is direct: around 40% of the business of IT major companies in India deals with BFSI industry. So, these IT companies would surely get impacted. They may loose few of their projects or may not get good number of new projects.

The other one is indirect: As money is what fuses life into any business, problem in the securities market would impact lot of businesses. For example, if a company wants to expand its business by going for an IPO, it may find it little difficult now. So, expansion may be postponed at least for some time. There are several other these kinds of scenarios which basically slows down the growth. So, our IT companies, like any other related industry, may not get good number of new orders.

Now, panic is the response for this? This is my opinion: Certainly no.

This is part of what we call as economic cycles. Economies (world or national) raise and fall and raise and it goes on. When economy goes very strong, every one tries to expand, so we get good number jobs and salaries. Also, as every one is in the rush of grabbing more, we may also tend to ignore few fundamentals. When economy shrinks, every one tries to cut the cost, so we may loose jobs and may not get new jobs. That’s the bad part.

But, still we can see something good in it. When economy is going week, every one tries to for the "best" in terms of productivity, efficiency, performance, maintenance ... because we want best deal for whatever limited money we have. What it means? It asks for new ideas, new processes, new technologies and etc., Lot of "bogus", "mismanaged", "inefficient" companies gets weeded out. Only worthy players remain in the market. Lot of clean-up happens, which is good.

It depends on which part of the glass you are looking at. Are you looking at the half-filled glass or half-empty glass?

As a student, we should never bother about the jobs. That’s just one of the by-product of our learning. Just keep on learning. Learn technologies. Learn soft skills. Learn things that fascinate you. Enjoy learning. That makes you best in the breed. And you kind of people always get the due recognition. The opportunity comes and knocks at the door of only prepared minds. Prepare for the worst, you get the best. This must be the case irrespective of the good or bad phase of economy we are in.

One more fact is that, in Bangalore alone there are around 3,50,000 software engineers work for various companies.You can think of how many are there in India (I do not know the actual figure). We are hearing job cuts in terms of just few thousands. Sure, there is a problem, but panic is not the answer. Don't get panic and loose your confidence.

If someone says software industry is collapsing, that’s a bit of exaggeration. That’s not going to happen, at least, in the nearest future. Moreover, exactly opposite may happen. Look at what happened during the days of Y2K and Dotcom bust in 2001. It’s all part of life. Be prepared for it. With preparation, you can face any thing.

Let me repeat. Preparation is the key. Do your best as a student, the rest is taken care. For that matter, we are all, inside and outside of the colleges, are students. Isn't it?