IT Companies and the Bench

These are overall very testing times which the IT industry albeit the entire industry is facing. I could actually feel this since I am myself working in the industry. Now-a days if you are on bench then that definitely means that you are looked down by the management and the HR personnel. Even for the guys who are on bench it’s a really anxious time. Every atleast 2 to 3 people come to me stating that they are desperately looking for projects and have been in bench for last 2 to 3 months etc. This is in sharp contrast to things as they were about 9 months back wherein we had people who were on bench  for more than a year and yet where not so desperate to get into a project.

Clearly an indication how the industry pendulum has swung in the last half a year or so. Each time something of this kind happens I believe to some extent this is for the benefit of the industry and would help them become more lean and competitive and at times revisit their business model as well. Atleast that was a clear affect of 2008 recession, where in IT companies for the first time were forced to come out of their complacency, it was the first time where in IT companies where forced to look into their bench and see how better the bench could be used.

As it’s known fact India is fast loosing it’s cost advantage thanks to our increasing salary costs and because of other developing economies which have ventured into the market. Hence it’s extremely important that management of these companies start looking at a different business model rather than relying just on outsourcing work, because we are losing ground real fast over there. I always though that a recession or a slow down definitely is an opportunity for lots of companies to rethink their strategy and invest some in unexplored areas, kind of a blue ocean (strategy). But from talking to people in the industry and friends the reaction from the IT companies have been mostly knee jerk. Where in instead of checking out where to invest the bench resources and utilize them best, the attitude mostly has been to do everything possible to reduce the bench strength. The point that we are missing here is that if somebody is on bench that doesn’t mean he is not skilled enough or non-employable. There are bench managers in all of these IT companies, who I think have a very important role in this. Because they have knowledge of the whole spectrum of people available on the bench hence probably they help form a bigger picture. Especially for bigger companies there are so many tools that we use or processes that could be automated that could be done using these bench resources, but then that needs some investment, which in this case could be seen as a sunk cost, since it doesn’t generate a revenue upfront. But in the longer run has the effect of bringing in implicit cost benefits.

These will ideally be a win-win situation for the employee and the employer. Otherwise what’s happening today is that the employees are forced to cross skill or get into projects where in they don’t exactly like or don’t fit in. This might work in the short run, but once the market scenario improves these people would be the first one to look out for opportunities and ofcourse our standing in the market as an employer also takes a beating.