Experts stress on skilling graduates for analytics jobs

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SME Times News Bureau | 25 Nov, 2017
Advocating public-private partnerships to improve India's employment ratio, academic and industry experts on Friday stressed on skilling engineering graduates in analytics for better job prospects.

"With the advent of new technologies like analytics, students need to be trained with right skill sets. A partnership of the government, institutions and the IT sector is crucial to spur the growth in data analytics," said IIIT-Bangalore Director S. Sadagopan at a day-long Digital Innovation Conclave here.

According to a industry study, analytics market is estimated to be $1.64 billion (Rs 10,600 crore) currently and growing at 29 per cent compound annual growth rate.

Though a part of the Knowledge Processing Industry (KPO), analytics is considered a separate industry.

In view of its importance in the career prospects of students and techies, IT industry apex body Nasscom, the Institute of Finance and International Management (IFIM) and the International Institute of Information Technology-Bangalore (IIIIT-B) had developed three courses in analytics to train about 10,000 post-graduate students across Karnataka by first training their faculty.

"As the country has a bright future in analytics, it is imperative to focus on data for businesses to grow. Hence, its curriculum should be designed to nurture the right talent for hiring," said Sadagopan.

Though the $155-billion Indian IT sector employs 39 lakh people, global financial advisory firm McKinsey estimated that the skill-sets of half of the workforce will be irrelevant, as they are not skilled to be in tune with the changing market needs.

"There is a need to re-skill the workforce in analytics and Artificial Intelligence as the technology is being adopted across industries. As data becomes the new fuel in running industries, the need for a professional knowledge of analytics and utilising it in artificial intelligence gains importance," said IIFM's Centre for Developmental Education Secretary Sanjay Padode at the conclave.

The conclave culminated with the formation of a think tank in digital business, chaired by professor Chandrasekhar, Chairman of Centre of Excellence for Business Analytics, IFIM Business School.

Sameer Dhanrajani, the Chief Strategy Officer of Fractal Analytics, Nitin Sareen, head of analytics Walmart Labs, Pankaj Rai, Senior Vice President- Strategy Wells Fargo are among its members.