- The movement to hybrid cloud, along with three of digital transformation – automation, artificial intelligence & analytics – is getting more advanced, interconnected and shaping the new workplace environment.
Bengaluru: Indian workforce is in immediate need of deep skilling as employers are ramping up efforts to upscale employee skill sets and knowledge, which can drive the country towards the 4th industrial revolution, experts have warned.
As per Raghav Gupta, MD, Coursera, an online learning platform, Covid-19 is accelerating digital skills adoption and data skills adoption and India is in critical need of deep skilling. Speaking during a recent webinar Gupta said, “While we have a very large IT industry and professional service industry, there is still a lot that needs to happen in terms of talent development of people.”
Referring to a recent report released by Coursera, he said India was compared with 59 other countries in the domain of business, technology and data science. While India performed on an average and stood in the middle of the ladder in terms of business, the country ranked poor and in the lower quarter, when it came to technology and data science.
“These are skills that are required for the 4th industrial revolution,” Gupta said, adding that micro and incremental skilling is no more sufficient. “We need some deep skilling,” he added.
As per Coursera, India ranks second on its platform with 9.8 million online learners following 14 million users in the United States. As per the company, over 21 million learners joined Coursera between March and May – a 353 per cent increase from the same period last year.
“We saw usage went up by 650 per cent on an average, and in India alone, it went up by 1400 per cent,” he said.
Key technology trends
Speaking on the latest technology trends, Natarajan Radhakrishnan, CIO, Hinduja Global Solutions, said the movement to hybrid cloud, along with three As of digital transformation – automation, artificial intelligence and analytics, is getting more advanced, interconnected and shaping the new workplace environment.
“Today we can even automate sophisticated tasks. Even in analytics, we have advanced from descriptive to predictive and cognitive analysis. We are witnessing an increasing combination of automation and analytics with liberal doses of AI,” he said.
Gupta also emphasised that corporate learning has transformed and today there is more sophistication and maturity in terms of how organisations are thinking about their people development. “Trending skills in professional services in terms of the 4th industrial revolution is where a lot of investment and skill development is happening,” he said.
The Covid-19 impact
Karthikeyan Natarajan, COO, Cyient – a company that provides solutions in engineering, manufacturing, and digital transformation said, the most important transformation Covid-19 has brought about in industries is the ability and agility to launch new products in a short cycle. Companies need to accelerate to meet new consumer expectations and market realities. We will witness technology adoption at varying levels based on different verticals.”
Providing statistics of how Covid-19 has accelerated the progress, he says, during the past six months alone, about 20 per cent new buyers were added to the e-commerce and digital commerce space. The number of e-learning has gone up by 27 per cent, while media and entertainment consumption went up by 18 per cent and e-payments up by 22 per cent.
“What previously took six years has happened during the last six months, putting pressure on enterprises to be digitally ready,” said Natarajan.
UaaS – the new mantra
Meanwhile, the upskilling of employees is emerging as a key HR strategy as more corporates try to catch up with new technology advancements and remain competitive.
The lockdown has provided an opportunity for companies to enable upskilling among its workforce.
“Upskilling-as-a-Service (UaaS) is what we are focusing on,” Simmi Dhamija, CTO, Tech Mahindra, said.
“Digital workplace has helped every organisation and has produced flexible work schedules, saving travel time and the very stress of traffic,” she says. Her company last month launched a new UaaS platform for over 60,000 employees globally in an effort towards skill development and preparing them for the future.