I graduated a year back from my B-School, with the intention and the motivation to break through, ‘win over the world’ in 5 years, and for once, be independent, after all these years having been supported by my parents. One year in the industry, introduced me to realities, factors which I hadn’t factored in during my B-School days. Surely, the corporate environment is not exactly something you are exposed to even at times like your internship. It is much more challenging and unpredictable. Both of these adjectives can have positive connotations, if you are someone who enjoys a challenge.
But nothing can prepare you for irregularities and impediments that come tagging along with a world-wide crisis like COVID-19. There is one statement that can sum up how I, and most agreeably, everyone in this industry is feeling – “The current situation is not as bad as we thought it would be (from a work perspective), but your future is unpredictable, dependent on your own organization’s performance and leadership.” A lot of organizations like mine would add the line “dependent on your own organization’s client’s performance” as well. Which would be a correct interpretation of times to come.
A lot of IT giants would predict their Q2 sales not meeting their expectations. The reason for this would be the inability of many companies and industries, on which the IT Industry depends on, not being able to shift their resources to work as efficiently as that in normal times. What I mean by that is – You cannot expect a delivery business to ensure deliveries are reaching the prospective warehouse in the quality promised working from home. That quality inspection has to be happened. While IT employees can create software, implement transformation projects from home, their clients cannot do the same. Another example could be Insurance companies being overburdened with claims requests by closing businesses who cannot afford to stay open or claims requests from people taking trips to the hospital to get medical treatment. All these claims dispersal require more time catering to the affected, than looking at IT transformations within the organizations. Again, while IT companies can implement strong software working from home, their client’s might not be having the best of times to give their undivided attention to comparatively temporarily futile activities like that of IT Transformations.
This is where internally, each IT company is trying to offer strategic consultations along with their IT prowess to turn-around the loss period as soon as possible. As someone who is working in this industry, I can vouch for the fact that each employee in the industry is still consulting their clients, completing transformations as we speak. In India, especially many organizations like mine have made sure each Consultant, Developer, Tester has a system at home. This has managed to portray how strong mentally each person in the leadership is as well as how seriously every employee who is consistently delivering results daily, takes their jobs. It is hard times like this that push the team to achieving greater heights.
While the present is not being affected as bad as we thought it would be, the future reeks of a possibility of a world-wide recession. While people lick their wounds of human loss, they are staring right at the possibility of a financial ruin. You are looking at a possibility of being jobless soon. This is true with other industries much more than the IT industry, but if clients are not able to turn around their financial performances, the IT industry is also headed towards a ruin. This is where individual companies need to make sure that they manage to survive, signing new deals while dealing with the repercussions of recession.
In conclusion, these times are unprecedented, and only organizations which have dedicated, committed employees, all working themselves to meet the collective goals of their teams, can survive the litmus test. This recently study by S&P Global in the Canadian market explain why the IT industry is still sitting on the iceberg and not slipping below it. (https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/articles/pandemic-affects-canadian-sectors-differently-evidence-from-the-information-technology-sector). Feel free to respond to this op-ed if you disagree. Reach me at ishaansenguptarishi@gmail
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