Some perpetual issues that most corporates face are lack of ready talent to meet corporate requirement, attrition, and lack of sustainable solutions to address these issues. Should global organizations be affected by situations like this? Certainly, not! 

When there is a will, there is a way! Let’s have a closer look at Genpact’s innovative way of handling such situations. 

It is established that at present, the demand for data scientists is higher than their supply across the globe. The demand, especially for analytics talent, is increasing with every passing hour, and there is a constant war for talent. 

K.S Viswanathan, Vice President of NASSCOM, opines that the analytics sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26% over the next five years. NASSCOM estimates that Big Data Analytics sector in India will continue to grow at this rate for the next nine years, and will cross the $16 billion mark by 2025. It is a known fact that there are not enough data scientists to tackle so much of data. 

According to McKinsey, the US alone faces a shortage of 140,000–190,000 analysts and 1.5 million managers who can analyze Big Data. Also, a recent survey by Gartner on Big Data skill gap has revealed that about two-thirds of Big Data skill requirements are still not met. 

This tiny population of data scientists can be attributed to the lack of skill building courses and programs at universities for students from Engineering, Economics, Statistics, and Mathematics background, who are otherwise suitable for this role. Genpact understands this scenario and the limitations of the universities. Given the dynamic industry trends, fresh graduates find it extremely difficult to cope up with the present requirements in the analytics field. To meet the need of the hour in an innovative way, Genpact has tied up with universities in India as well as abroad. To combat this situation and deal with market volatility, new regulations, data expansion, advent of new technology, and cost pressure, Genpact decided to build talent with the help of academia than buying talents from the market. Building talent is an intelligent way to shape these young graduates to fit Genpact’s needs just like the pieces of a zig-saw puzzle fitting perfectly with each other when placed rightly. Keeping in mind the low pipeline of readily deployable “made talent” and the high attrition rate, building talent is a very effective way of dealing with such crisis. This saves a lot of cost and helps retain employees to a great extent. It is a win-win situation for the corporate, the academia, and the students aspiring to join the corporates. 

Let’s go back in time to understand what Genpact has achieved through this collaboration. In 2009, Genpact came up with the idea of “Service Factory” within the business and decided to focus on entry-level analysts who are constantly required for both replacement of talent and the growth of business. A favorable method to fulfil this need was to build talent internally. With Genpact’s vision to develop industry-ready talent, the purpose of tying up with universities was to build a ready-to-deploy talent pool consisting of fresh graduates while they were still pursuing their Undergrad/Postgrad programs. It was a concern that new hires from the campus were not ready for their roles in spite of having the required academic qualifications and aptitude. To bridge this gap between academic knowledge and the skill required for the job, Genpact selects a handful of students from its partner universities and they are mentored by Genpact’s seasoned SMEs through the On Campus Analytics and Research Programs. Genpact believes that the readiness for continuous learning is a far greater virtue than what a new hire already knows. Through regular and rigorous training programs, employer sessions, guest lectures, workshops, and internship opportunities at Genpact offices, students are given early exposure to analytics tools and tutored to meet Genpact’s needs. The best of these students are finally deployed. This indeed has been a more reliable and sustainable way than deploying industry-ready talent. 

We began this journey in 2012 with IMT-Ghaziabad, one of the most renowned institutions of this country, and have never looked back since then. We are still partners with IMT-Ghaziabad and have set up an Analytics Lab at their campus. Going forward with this venture, we have partnered with other universities, such as the University of Calcutta, Jadavpur University, ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad in India and Rutgers University in the USA. We have also connected with leading global universities, such as Heriot Watt University in Scotland, UTS, Macquarie, and University of Melbourne in Australia. 

Taking a step forward, Genpact has collaborated with a number of institutes recently. We have signed an MoU with Birla Institute of Technology (BITS), Pilani for analytics programs for both our employees and the students of BITS. Genpact has also tied up with the online knowledge platform, UpGrad, in association with International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore for a nano-degree program, in Data Analytics. Similar is the case for Imarticus. The purpose of these programs is to help young professionals boost their careers. An MoU has also been signed with Amrita University, accredited “A” by NAAC. This collaboration is focused upon developing industry oriented knowledge and skills in the field of Analytics. 

Genpact has trained over 1500 resources and deployed them with various analytics clients across the globe. Genpact plans to take these collaborations to the next level by engaging academicians and researchers as consultants for challenging analytics projects. Involving faculty members as consultants and research partners will pave a way for innovation in the field of Analytics.

The success of the collaboration between Genpact and the universities has, undoubtedly, been remarkable. The key to this success is the mutually benefiting ecosystem that encompasses the business, the academia, and the students.

(This article was first published on LinkedIn here by the author)