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<p>As businesses throughout the world ramp up their technology usage in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak, India's need for technology and software professionals has skyrocketed. However, hiring across sectors dropped during the middle of this year. Still, the tech job market bounced from the pandemic-induced downturn and many technology companies have been in full expansion mode. According to the Indian Staffing Federation (ISF), the country's demand for IT professionals has doubled in the last 14 months as most global corporations rush to digitize and automate their operations. <h2><b>Tech Hiring Statistics in India</b></h2><div id="color-highlight">The immediate recruitment for freshers and others saw an increase in 2021, particularly in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Cloud Computing, Information Security, and Blockchain. Notable IT services and outsourcing firms in India such as Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys have been ramping up hiring to meet large client orders. <strong>According to the National Association of Software and Services Corporations (Nasscom), India's five largest companies are expected to hire 96,000 people this year.</strong> Nasscom stated that India's IT and business process management industry employs roughly 4.5 million people with a scarcity of software engineers, data scientists, and other professionals. <strong>In July, the annual growth rate for IT software rose by 212%, followed by ITes with annual growth of 46%.</strong></div><p> The present pool of digitally skilled workers in India is insufficient resulting in a talent shortage in the software services sector. Tech organizations are in a hire-or-poach mentality, resulting in sky-high pay, with some even hiring non-engineering graduates to fill the gap. The tremendous need for tech skills isn't limited to recent graduates. In May this year, the 0-3 year band group experienced a 22% increase. The mobility of senior professionals was particularly strong, with a double-digit rise in the 13-16 year (+11%), 8-12 year (+8%), and 16+ year (+10%) categories. Leadership hiring is booming, many tech-driven organizations are incorporating pioneered technologies and require a leader to drive engineering teams. According to industry watchers, these recruiting trends are likely to continue for the next three years, with IT firms forecasting a skills shortage for at least the next two quarters. What firms are looking for now, are innovative ways to hire people, including non-engineers. <strong>As a tech head executive search firm, one of the most distinct trends Purple Quarter is noticing is the compensation metrics benchmarking. To allure Senior Tech talent, domestic firms rife with funding are matching compensation at par with that of Silicon Valley, offering lucrative packages, ESOPs now. </strong> </p><h2><b>Post-Pandemic Tech Hiring Challenges</b></h2><p> The pandemic had revolutionized the focus of an organization on customers and employee satisfaction. Furthermore, new abilities that are compatible with technologies are required for more efficient procedures. As workers require new skills to perform their current jobs, it becomes more challenging for HR leaders to quickly find the talent to meet the requirements. Indeed, organizations must ensure that they have the proper capabilities embedded in new-age technologies to adapt and take steps to ensure constant learning and reskilling of their employees with the relevant skillset. However, the tech industry's main difficulty would be obtaining and retaining qualified candidates, especially now that the job market is improving and voluntary employee churn is on the rise. Hiring the right talent by analyzing the skill sets and stability is now a long-term investment for tech-driven companies. The challenge will be enormous when it comes to an in-house tech leader search. </p></p>
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<p>The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us that business and technological strategies are inextricably linked. The firms which have digitally matured, or are on the brink, are vigorously incorporating cutting-edge technologies post-pandemic. The CTO has become at the forefront of transformation, there is now a renewed focus on the larger corporate environment and the CTO role has evolved dramatically in the last year. <h2><b>Future Transformation of CTO </b></h2><p> While the function of the CTO is a staple of the executive team at many large corporations, it differs depending on where you look. Even in its most frequent form, Chief Technology Officer, the title, can have a wide range of functions and responsibilities depending on the workplace. And, regardless of how the job description is stated, the role's major priorities appear to constantly evolve. Tech acting more than an enabler, the CTO is dually playing the internal as well as an external role; owning the technology aspects of the company’s customer-facing products and services (especially more in tech-centric firms but also other industries). Today’s CTOs don the hat of a chief strategy officer as practically every organization aspires to achieve digital transformation and create tech-driven consumer experiences. </p><div id="color-highlight">The ability to harness advanced technologies (AI, big data, and machine learning, for example) to establish a strategic course for a business may be more crucial to the function than in-depth technical knowledge of hardware and code. The tech visionaries are expecting that CTOs may originate from sectors other than traditional IT, like R&D, data science, or sales, as the job description grows. Eventually, versatility and flexibility will be crucial intangible traits because the function of a CTO progresses at the same rate as technology. </div><h2><b>What will be most relevant to a CTO in the future?</b></h2><p> As a leader, CTOs must actively manage their team and find a system to communicate anything tech-related to the board of directors or other key stakeholders. Nowadays, CTOs are expected to be as knowledgeable about business as they are about technology. Create a community and support system. Being a CTO is a very collaborative profession, rather than an individual contributor role. In the future, a CTO will be defined based on the network they are having. Hence, developing a community is mandatory to handle the role effectively. Learn how to concentrate on and absorb crucial information about upcoming technology. A couple of years ago it was a cloud; now it's digital and someday it'll be quantum. Keeping updated and working to stay relevant is another major key for all the CTOs to achieve success. Improving "softer" abilities should be a priority for the CTOs. Patience and the ability to accept change, live with ambiguity, and operate under pressure are among them. </p><h2><b>Bottom Line</b></h2><p> The role of CTO, unlike certain other roles, never stays the same. It's continually evolving as per the time and the scale of tech innovations. Since technology is increasingly becoming the prime mover for a company's success, the CTO's function will become diversified. A Chief Technology Officer's future appears bright, they will continue to play a critical role in maintaining business agility and continuity as we maneuver through the pandemic taking stock of the situation and rebuilding for better and more efficient processes. </p><h3><strong>Authored by Pratheek. V</strong></h3></p>
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<p>The startup landscape has radically evolved transcending boundaries in the last few decades. As of today, we have over 800+ Unicorns globally shifting mainstream startup dialogues across the US, Singapore, India and all over. Funding is paramount and credible investors and VCs are in abundance for businesses cracking the code of solving for essentials and the masses. What was offset by Silicon Valley’s service-based companies, transitioned to the product tech giants like Google, Microsoft. These entities became the forefront solution providers and made Technology ‘cooler’, promising and futuristic. Buoyed by their success, more tech product companies mushroomed with the challenge to deliver valuable services and products relevant to their target markets. Regionally diverse predicaments had locally sensitive distinct solutions, all driven by Tech; like Southeast Asia with dense populations areas focussed on digitisation, in Africa the focus on greatly on fintech with varying lending entities while the US, being ahead of their tech curve, has had more B2B and SaaS platforms along with solving deep tech services. Irrespective of regions, it has been the tech that came to the fore in solving critical long-pending issues. And when pandemic overhauled systems, economies and enterprises, Technology answered large scale solutions with a steady and reliable response. We can comfortably say that Covid19 played the ‘Cupid’ for technology. Going digital, remote operations, virtual presence, education and more became possible with robust and innovative tech-driven solutions. Today, conversations around Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Machine Learning, Blockchain are rooted in startups having real-world applications. They transform industries, change livelihoods and birth new possibilities. In the present-day IPO shower, the most noticeable companies going public have had hyperscale growth years fueled by disruptive technology-backed products, services or research. These companies possibly renewed their customer experience, improved their performance metrics, automated, created the right product-market fit, gained accurate insightful analytics and more; all tapping predominantly on Technology. As technology aggressively permeated sectors, the need for effective, able Tech Leaders to frontend tech verticals became paramount. And what we have today is an inexorable demand for Tech Leaders. A pre-pandemic study had hinted that by 2023, most firms will hire CTOs for harnessing disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and robotics. But post-pandemic, the demand for CTOs and Tech Leaders exploded. Existing businesses were pivoting tech-first and newer entities are jumping on the tech bandwagon. In the absence of a capable Tech Leader at the helm, firms struggle to consistently innovate, dwindle in competition and lag at emerging technologies. Businesses are aggressively seeking the most suitable CTOs aboard but the challenge to find Senior Talent who would leverage disruptive technology is very real. Organisations, despite their critical mandates, lack the proper approach towards the Tech Leadership search. A Tech Leader has to be mapped very intelligently. They are responsible for a stake worth of business decisions, scaling teams & operations and front-ending an adroit strategy. Accuracy in profiling the right tech leader is imperative! You have to know the leader, know their trajectory, how much Tech Landscape have they solved, at what point did they solve the Tech problems, recent or in early point of their career, what was the immediate & overall impact, the company fitment and so much more; these are all precisely gauged with smart and thoughtful parameters devised inhouse, by Purple Quarter. Our singular focus is on CTO search with authentic processes to deliver proven and most accurate results. While pandemic, despite being the great bane, has invariably pushed the envelope on Senior Tech hiring. Companies are now more flexible to remote hiring and employment. We can conveniently have a veteran talented Tech Leader working out of one timezone with their team and the company that is based on another timezone. The constriction of seeking only region-specific talent is foregone. Companies have easier and wider access to an extensive talent pool and deserving candidates have countless options at hand not bound to limited options of the region. We can adeptly have a company based out of Nigeria looking at a Tech Leader from Israel or even a firm in Egypt sourcing talent pool from India. It has opened newer and wider doors for an inflow of talent. The traditional search process has evolved, it is diverse and mutually beneficial to both parties. More flexibility, agreeable employment terms minus the hassles of relocation, country-specific regulations and permits are on offer. The scope of senior tech hiring is now boundless, companies have opened up their criteria, candidates have more than enough lucrative avenues, there couldn’t be a better time than now to engage in the perfect Tech Leadership hunt. <i>Authored by Roopa Kumar, Founder & COO, Purple Quarter</i> </p>
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<p>The line between Business and Technology is increasingly becoming blurred. Digital Innovation and adoption have left no other choice. In this evolving landscape, the roles of a Chief Information Officer (CIO) and a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) have exceedingly changed. Let’s take a closer look at how this new environment has given more power to these two highly sought-after profiles. <b>CTOs have a bigger role to play than ever before</b> If the proposition that ‘Technology is King’ is true for an organization, then it is safe to state that a CTO plays the role of ‘Kingmaker’. The fact that this position was a fringe, a decade ago, is a testament to the fact that business operations have taken a 360-degree turn today. The role of CTO has become such a key for organizations that even the White House appointed its very first CTO, Aneesh Chopra in 2009. In most companies, a CTO runs an engineering team while also keeping the customer, end product, and revenue growth in focus. They also play a crucial role as technical evangelists. Cutting-edge technologies are ruling businesses, the SaaS companies are changing the landscape of business; at this crucial time, a Chief Technology Officer in an organization has to make sure effective incorporation of advanced technology to compete. <b>CIOs are no longer in the backseat</b> The roles of the Chief Information Officer and Chief Innovation Officer have merged. Traditionally, the role of a CIO would be to compile and interpret data on corporate technology. Once the gathered data becomes relevant information, the CIO would implement procedures on strategic planning, operational efficiency, and more. If we have to draw a strawman, a CIO would be a person who takes a backseat when it comes to running the business. However, the modern era has changed the rulebook. Catalyzed by the fact that businesses need to grow and adapt at a faster rate than ever before, a Chief Information Officer takes on the internal role of a Chief Innovation Officer. The CIOs have to upgrade their skills, pace up to the innovative ideas of the time and also make sure that the organization is coherently evolving. <b>The contrast between a CIO and CTO</b> One of the stark differences between these two profiles is that a CIO generally plays a more introspective role within the company whereas a CTO functions from an external standpoint. A Chief Information Officer monitors the day-to-day operations; while, the Chief Technology Officer has to view the bigger picture and structure the frameworks, by incorporating the latest technologies or modifications and update the existing applications. In larger organizations, it would be safe to say that the CIO manages IT infrastructure and the CTO manages the business’s technology architecture. However, when resources are unavailable, a CTO generally absorbs the responsibilities of a CIO. Coming to the skill requirements, the technical knowledge of the CTO should be off the charts in multiple domains. If you are building one of the world’s best tech companies, you should ideally have one of the world’s best CTOs. However, a CIO doesn’t need to be that tech-savvy. CIOs need to possess organizational skills, managerial skills. It is often the case that CIOs are chosen to be employees with experience within the company while it is common to hire a CTO externally. And thus, it becomes imperative to hire the most suitable CTOs and Tech Leaders with not just the right acumen but mapped by the right profiling, one who is in tune with the organization’s vision, strategy and goals. With years of industry experience and singular domain focus, Purple Quarter understands the ‘hit or miss’ criticality of the right Tech Leadership hire for businesses. <h3><strong>Authored by Pratheek. V</strong></h3></p>
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<p>Almost two years back we were living in a world that seems completely different from the one that we live in today. The COVID-19 outbreak has forced us to change the lenses through which we look at companies and individuals. It is a story of one such company and one individual who had united by their altered perspectives. In May 2019, Purple Quarter was engaged with a SaaS giant for a Tech Leadership role. The firm was almost on the verge of becoming a Unicorn, a feat they still aspire to today. We introduced them to a tech leader that in our opinion was a perfect fit for the company. He had a couple of decades of experience in product-based SaaS companies and was then working for a company valued less than 5 times the one he was applying for. Even though the tech leader had job offers in multi-billion dollar companies overseas, staying in India was his top priority. There is no denying that the SaaS giant’s leadership position he was gunning for has one of the best tech infrastructures in the country thus, in India, was one of the biggest targets for people with similar profiles. However, the company was on an upward trajectory and wanted people with experience in larger firms. Another reason for the mismatch of the profile was that the tech leader wanted a remote work option to stay close to his family when necessary. Hence, the tech leader stayed in the same company and the mandate for the role also died down. Fast forward to May 2020. While most companies were struggling to find a revenue stream, this particular firm, like many other SaaS companies, saw an opportunity to expand and grow. They needed urgent leaders to run their expanding business. However, this time, they were looking at candidates with more agility, flexibility, people with hands-on experience with scale, people who are not afraid to come out of their comfort zone to try new things. Remote working was another area where the perspective of the SaaS firm changed along with the entire world. Company functions that were never imagined previously became possible, pivot to remote roles being one such stark shift. Unlike many on-premise systems, SaaS infrastructure has profited from the work-from-home trend. SaaS solutions, which help keep connections tight, have suddenly found themselves in a unique position to benefit remote workers. We received a mandate to close the leadership position as soon as possible. Typically, a role of such stature takes around 60 days to close. But Purple Quarter knew exactly where to go. In just 30 days of the revised mandate, we were working on onboarding the Tech Leader in the SaaS giant. It is truly commendable how quickly the SaaS major adapted to the ‘New Normal’ and got the same Tech Leader onboard in under a month. The swiftness is truly a testament to their leadership team, their TA leader, and the Tech Leader’s adaptability to the new scenario. This is just one case study of a company changing its outlook to accommodate a post-COVID-19 worldview. Now, we have numerous such examples to attest to this post-COVID tech hiring landscape.<h3><strong>Authored by Pratheek. V</strong></h3></p>
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