Indian Digital Economy riding on India's Talent Pool

According to an ICICI Securities strategy report, the expansion of India's digitally skilled talent pool is expected to boost the country's digital economy even further.

As per Nasscom, the IT industry's apex body, India had approximately 1.17 million digitally skilled employees as of FY21, a 32 percent increase year on year.

Blockchain, IoT, cloud computing, Industry 4.0, automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and 3-D printing are examples of emerging digital economy technologies that are already being implemented in India, such as the use of AI, robotics, blockchain, and data analytics by leading banks.

While India has the credibility to lead the digitalization wave, it must work to improve the skillsets of its workforce. Endowing to a recent study commissioned by Amazon Web Services (AWS), digitally skilled workers currently account for 12% of India's workforce. Still, the number of workers in India requiring digital skills will need to increase ninefold by 2025.

To keep up with technological advancements and demand, the average Indian worker will need to learn seven new digital skills by 2025. From 2020 to 2025, this equates to 3.9 billion digital skill pieces of training.

Several technology companies with a presence in India have launched various initiatives to meet the demand for digital talent. The board of Electronics and Information Technology stated in January (MeitY), and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced plans to set up a Quantum Computing Applications Lab in India to speed up quantum computing-driven research and development and enable new scientific discoveries.

Recent Measures towards India Digitalization 

According to a MEITY study, India's digital economy was worth $200 billion (8 percent of GDP) in 2018 and is predicted to enlarge by 3x to 5x (18-23 percent of GDP) by 2025. On a cross-country basis, India is the second-fastest-growing country in terms of digital adoption in recent years, despite remaining much lower in digital adoption rankings.

Microsoft and the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) collaborated last year to provide digital skills to over 100,000 youth in the country over 12 months. Microsoft will work with the National Skill Development Corporation's eSkill India portal to provide free access to learning resources and to hold digital skilling awareness drives.

Last year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai declared a $10 billion Google for India Digitization Fund to help speed up India's digital economy over the next 5-7 years. Pichai stated that this would be accomplished through a combination of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure, and ecosystem investments.

Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of Infosys, announced on Saturday that the IT firm has continued to strengthen its talent pool by signing 19,230 graduates in India and 1,941 outside the country to meet its clients' growing demand for digital acceleration. Nilekani stated at Infosys' 40th annual general meeting that the company is well-positioned for another year of "market-leading performance" in a post-pandemic, cloud-first digital era.

"During the pandemic, cloud adoption accelerated as enterprises focused on building hybrid work models, collaboration infrastructure, and business continuity." Nasscom has established its FutureSkills PRIME initiative in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and IT to equip talent in emerging technologies, and cloud skills are a vital area of focus on this platform," Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh said.

In 2020, 11 new unicorns (private tech companies with a valuation of at least $1 billion) were created in a country that had been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic — the similar of the previous three years combined. India had 15 new unicorns in the first half of 2021, raising $6 billion at a total valuation of $28 billion. According to Investcorp, 100 new unicorns will be created in the country by 2025.

Workforce to meet the New Service Demands 

Traditional back-end services will be disrupted and reinvented as a result of the rise of automation. However, India is cementing its position as the world's most popular outsourcing destination by preparing its workforce to meet these new service demands.

As automation turns into a global reality, having an Indian team develop new skills for the digital age helps foreign companies anticipate new demands in an increasingly digitized workplace.

The emergence has significantly persuaded the banking sector of revolutionary technologies that are rapidly changing and adapting to customer requirements. The use of biometrics, wearable technology, facial recognition, and AI-enabled banking systems for hassle-free customer service will expand to total capacity with the availability of talent skilled in operating such systems. The process of developing an efficient talent pool begins with campus placements. Dedicated training programs, an internal talent management framework, and flexible work policies will help you become a preferred employer.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who took office in 2014, prioritized digital transformation. Startups are increasingly being recognized as important engines of economic growth by both the federal and state governments. Furthermore, startups are expected to create jobs, helping to reduce the country's high unemployment rate. Startups accounted for 2.64 percent of total jobs created in India in 2018; they are expected to create between 200,000 and 250,000 jobs in 2019.

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