Friday, March 11, 2011

IT Jobs

I would like to give a complete description of what lies in store when you are choosing a career in IT. This is purely based on my personal experience in this sector. At the time of writing this post, I have been in this industry for the past 7 and a half years.
Types of Firms one need to watch out for
1) Service sector - These companies take up the outsourced jobs. The variety of things ranges from DEVELOPMENT, PRODUCTION SUPPORT, CONSULTING. These companies derive their income based on how much hours they bill their workforce. So, there is a constant pressure. I have seen foul practices in this industry wherein when there is any unforeseen holiday, the employees are asked to report to work on weekend to compensate for the loss of billing. Companies such as TCS, CTS, INFOSYS, ACCENTURE, CAPGEMINI, etc can be categorized as service companies. These are best suited for people in the initial stages of their career as they get opportunity to work on variety of projects and hence they can accumulate lots of technical knowledge . Going ahead in the career, say for example when a person becomes a Project manager, it becomes difficult to get that person billed. Also, the salary paid for project manager when compared to the billed junior resources is too much. Hence we cannot expect much attention and care for the senior folks in these kinds of firms. Also, if a senior resource leaves, there won't be an attempt to stop him/her as the next campus interview will bring them lots of freshers and their last year recruits (freshers) would have matured by now and they can be used to groom these freshers. This is the kind of attitude exhibited by these firms. The only bonus would be like there will be onsite opportunities in this class of firms.
2) Captive units - These can also be called as offshored units. These are indian arms of MNCs and these are basically setup by companies that choose not to offshore certain projects. Reason could be that they want to develop their own knowledge base OR the projects are too secure to be outsourced. Unlike outsourced projects, here the employee will be continuing to work on one project for a very long tenure. More than technicality, the functional knowledge gained by the employee will be respected. Some of these firms pay year end bonuses too. Examples of these kinds of firms: Goldman Sachs, Nomura, Bank of America, Hewitt Associates, iNautix, etc. The kind of work would be a mix of both development and production support. Employee care would be the highest priority in these firms as when an employee leaves, the accumulated functional knowledge also goes away with the employee. There will be very less/limited onsite opportunities in these class of firms.
3) Product based - I haven't yet worked in this type of firm. However, the kind of technical knowledge one gets in these class of firms should be good.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Regional Parties-a barrier on the growth path??

India is already reaping the benefit of globalisation. Indian people are everywhere. Be it africa, america or australia. Indians are spread across every continent. This being the good part. The bad part being that they are in one way taking away the employment opportunities of the native folks. But, those countries are continuing to encourage such people entering their place. Because, they know that no country can live in isolation and think about growth.

Consider the claims of many a parties in india. They don't want people from other states entering in to place & taking away the local job opportunities. Why would the political parties come up with such a campaign in the first place? If you clearly see, parties that do this are strong regional parties. Their position is at stake. They are losing their vote bank because of globalization. People are moving here and there. From north to south of india or vice versa. Till date, they have thrived by winning the hearts of these local masses. Now, the vote bank is mixed. Clearly, in a proper global environment no regional party has scope for existence. These regional parties would go out of picture within a decade.

We will see lots of such riots and agitations come up during this transition period. The regional parties will use the simple divide-and-rule formula. There is a famous proverb in tamil which encourages people to go overseas to accumulate weath.

திரை கடல் ஓடியும் திரவியம் தேடு

This is the way to boost national growth. Just imagine what would have happened if people continued to stay in their own place. How india would have showcased it's potential to outside world? How we could have reached such a level in just 50 years of independence? Our NRI friends stay outside india and pump in so much of foreign currency. If the agitation happening in indian states is proper, then be ready. Our near and dear ones from abroad will be sent back home and our national growth will come to a grinding halt. Is this what we want? a big NO would be the answer. So, what would be the solution for this.

Well. There is no clear cut solution. The only thing that has to happen is that the regional parties should change their stand & have a different goal... Something that helps our nation in moving forward.. Either, they should become one with some national party. Or because of their proper goal, they will very quickly reach the level of a national party. We already have couple of trend setters who improved their state capital's infrastructure & thereby they became a compelling reason for foreign firms to setup their base in those places. Let's forget for a moment few of the bad things they have done in their political career. Just try to remember the good job they did in improving the state capital's infrastructure. That in turn became a compelling factor for many of the major firms to setup their base in those places & subsequently resulted in employment for many of the local folks. That indeed helps in national growth & they should be really appreciated for acting in a responsible way to boost national growth.

Note:- This blog is edited to the maximum extent to ensure that i don't hurt anyone's regional or political sentiments.

Regional Parties-a barrier on the growth path

Friday, October 3, 2008

purchasing electronic stuffs in U.S

The first best way is to go with dealstobuy.com... it basically searches multiple stores like circuit city, staples, best buy, etc & displays the sorted results. Circuit city always gives one the best price. Similarly, there is another site called pricegrabber.com... pricegrabber lists re-furbished ones as well. There are stores like costo that give you even better deals. But, the issue is that they look for membership. It costs 100$ i believe. If you have any of your friends who are already having the costco membership, you surely will get a better deal that circuit city.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Useful Sites

Mobile Purchase
http://www.themobilestore.in/ --> THE MOBILE STORE (has the best price)
http://www.futurebazaar.com --> BIG BAZAAR
http://www.univercell.in --> UNIVERCELL (the next best to mobile store)

Sunday, March 23, 2008

My Trip to Matheran

A trip to Matheran
It was the day before holi (21st March '08). Starting of a long weekend. I started off on my trip to matheran along with my friend on friday early morning. We took a karzat bound train from kurla. It was fast local till kalyan and stopped at every station after kalyan. It was a tiring 1 and a half hour journey. From neral, we were interested in taking the toy train (http://www.luxury-train-travel-tours-india.com/hill-trains-in-india/matheran-light-railway.html). But, ended up with a disappointment when we saw that it is fully booked till the weekend. Then, we took a cab from neral to matheran. It costed us just 100 bucks (50 per person). The cab was fully packed with 9 people. Still, we had to take it as we had no other option. It's just a 9 km travel (2625 feet above sea level) and the cab driver covered the distance very quickly.

We didn't have a good plan. Still, we managed to visit "monkey point", "hart point" and "Charlotte lake". Also, we attempted some sort of adventerous stuff out there (guess i can call it cliff-hanging... not sure). There was a rope tied between two rocks and we need to go from one to the other almost lying down. Was really a very different experience for us. There were hell lot of monkeys everywhere (except the monkey point :) ). One of the monkeys snatched away the goodday pack from my friend. We thought we won't get anything to eat at noon. But, we were amazed to find a lot of restaurants at "bazaar peth". We had gujarati thali in a restaurant there. Costed us 160 bucks. Roti was really good.

There were loads of horses going through the place all the while. At one point, we had couple of monkeys blocking our way on the front & a horse almost knocking us down from the back side. Forgot to mention about the sand. It was red sand all the way. And with the horses in action all the while, you may need to keep your face covered if you are allergic to dust. I thought of wearing my new shoe for the trip. But, my friend warned me about the sand. So, I settled for my old one. His warning turned out true. The shoe was wearing a very sad look by the time we returned.

While walking, we could find lots of drinks stalls. You can try having a good "neeboo sharbath" at regular intervals. While coming back home, we were totally worn out as we walked for atleast 10 to 12 kilometres during the day. To sum up, it was really a very good break. Away from regular day to day activities.