In a digital-first world, all firms are technology cos

By Shalini Kapoor

The evolution of the skilling-career continuum has accelerated following the pandemic. As the business landscape evolves for companies across varied sectors, skilling and work are more integrated than ever before. In this new frontier, job seekers — whether they are freshers or lateral talent — must link skilling with real-world opportunities by aligning to exponential technologies that are changing the way we work and the future of business. However, even as millions of candidates enter the employment market every year in India, companies in key sectors are facing a talent crunch due to skill gaps. According to a report by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), titled ‘FutureSkills Talent in India’, the demand for digital talent jobs in the country is about eight times the size of the fresh talent pool and the gap will increase to 20 times by 2024.

The situation is similar in the case of lateral talent too. In a global survey by analyst firm Gartner, IT leaders revealed they see talent paucity as the biggest barrier to the adoption of 64% of new technologies by their companies. Today, the quartet of emerging technologies known as ABCD (

AI

, blockchain, cloud & data analytics) is the key to a successful career in not merely IT or software industry but other sectors too as these technologies are pervading companies everywhere. Essentially, every company is now a

technology

company in a

digital-first

world.

ABCD is altering the skill landscape

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an advanced technology that is being deployed at a robust rate by companies in education, banking, retail and healthcare sectors and even by governments due to its many benefits. In education, self-service portals using text-based chatbots and voice assistants are coming up on the back of AI technologies. Leading companies in the banking and retail sectors are looking to streamline their customer service and engagement using AI, given the improving ability of machines to understand human language.

In the healthcare and life sciences industries, AI tools can supplement physician efficiency, lessen the burden on clinicians, offer new use cases such as intelligent scribes, documentation assistance and provide clinical decision support. Natural language processing, machine learning and neural networks are the areas of AI that are powering these new trends coupled with the digital transformation that companies are pursuing.

Another new technology transforming a range of industries and governments is blockchain, as it moves beyond the proof-of-concept stage into solutions that create value. Companies in financial services, retail, insurance and manufacturing sectors are looking to adopt consortium-based permissioned blockchain for trading, cross-currency payments, supply chain, asset digitisation, loyalty programmes, risk provenance and maintenance tracking. Various state governments in India are laying the groundwork to use blockchain networks for e-governance, revenue collection, maintenance of land records and voting during elections.

Similarly, open, hybrid cloud adoption is growing by leaps and bounds as companies migrate their data and applications to the cloud for data interoperability, improved customer engagement and asset management. The migration to the cloud is happening through models such as software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service. Hybrid cloud is critical for companies to benefit from personalisation made possible by AI and asset management through the IoT technology.

Last, data analytics continues to be a vital technology as every company is now becoming data-driven. Those operating in the banking, retail and telecom sectors rely on advanced data analytics to run personalised campaigns and provide omni-channel curated customer experience. Data analytics is helping them to improve their operational efficiencies, drive customer retention, mitigate risks and improve bottom lines.

To summarise, the exponential technologies are becoming all-pervasive as they afford several benefits to companies and enable them to secure themselves from unprecedented events such as Covid. With the rise of low code and no-code tools that help deploy emerging technologies, their adoption by companies in many industries would increase rapidly. The disruption caused by the pandemic provides an enormous opportunity for companies to reconfigure the world of work. For job seekers, it is a chance to embark on an up-skilling and re-skilling journey that can prepare them for the future of work, whatever the working model may be. Continuous skilling aligned with advanced technologies in conjunction with a protean approach is crucial to stay relevant and become future-proof.

(The writer is IBM fellow and director & CTO - AI applications, IBM India Software Labs)