Although outsourcing specialised software engineering skills is helping SA bridge the skills deficit that continues to plague the country, outsourcers should also play their part in developing local skills.
So says Harish Lala, VP and regional business head for Africa at Zensar, an Indian IT outsourcing firm. He points out that outsourcing specialised IT skills is a matter of servicing the IT needs of a business in an environment where supply of skilled resources is inadequate.
“Businesses focus on their core activities and outsource non-core activities to specialist IT service providers,” he notes.
However, Lala says it could be argued that outsourcing specialised software engineering work to a supplier could take away from local skills development and job opportunities. He believes that simply importing skills from overseas is not going to solve the long-term challenges of not having enough skills in the country.
He reveals that Zensar, which has been active in SA for several years, provides IT outsourcing services to the South African market and also invests in sustainable local skills development to create a balanced mix across shores.
Zensar has a development centre in Rivonia, where local graduates are trained and then work to support the business' clients. The company says that, as it expands its operations into the rest of Africa, this development centre will serve as an offshore centre for those countries, where the same model will be gradually rolled out.
Around 100 graduates are absorbed into this system every year. While the programme does require an investment, it isn't a charitable exercise, but a business model, says Lala.
He explains that, for the past 18 months, Zensar has been sourcing suitable graduates from local universities, based on their skills and the needs of the company's clients.
“They then undergo training and spend six months in India, where they are exposed to offshoring processes and culture. They come back employable and enter a work environment within our clients' operations. And all this is done in collaboration with our clients.
“To create a long-term sustainable model, businesses and IT service providers need to come together and develop local skills, which cannot be done by academia alone. We need collaboration between academia, IT service providers as skills alignment agents, and the end-user industry, to not only develop skills but also to generate meaningful employment to generate momentum,” Lala says.
Lala is of the view that formal tertiary education institutions in SA provide good education that is of a high standard.
“South African ICT graduates are world-class, no doubt about that. The problem we face today is numbers coming into the tertiary system and then coming out of it. Not enough graduates or postgraduates are coming out of the higher education stream, let alone with strong interests in Maths and Science.”
He also notes that attracting students to the industry is also not as high as in other countries, such as India.
“Industry bodies and government, along with industry players, can play a role to raise awareness and attract more people right from early years to this industry.
According to Lala, the lack of specialised software engineering skills is not only a problem in SA, but in many other countries, too. To satisfy their demand, he says, those countries are attracting talent from across the globe and thus put further pressure on our limited talent pool.
“This brain drain is not uncommon; people are moving out for various reasons, including working for international brands, better locations and better money. What we need to do is to ensure our supply is strengthened and aligned with correct policies; we will be able to slow this down and reverse the drain in the long term.
“Rather than blaming government, firstly we need to understand that skills development is a joint responsibility. We need to develop an ecosystem wherein government, industry bodies, academia and IT companies come together to address this issue and take responsibility.”
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