In no other industry in the world is the business performance so directly mapped to a companys performance as an employer: its ability to recruit, train and retain talent. No surprise, after sales and net profit figures, the next set of metrics that most analysts jump into is net additions, attrition rates, and utilization rates, when analyzing the performance of IT companies. And no surprise that the Dataquest issue that gets the most enthusiastic participation from the industry (just to give you an idea, receiving thirteen calls from one company in a single day to know the results) is our annual issue on Indias Best IT Employers.

In that sense, by reintroducing (actually, we had an HR section till about a year ago) the regular Talent Management section in the magazine, we are just closing a long-existing gap. There are a couple of reasons why we have decided to call it talent management, in addition to the fact that it is today a very recognized phrase. One is that the conventional term, HR, because of its traditional use, has become synonymous with a narrow support function within the organization, as opposed to a strategic business priority that is on the CEOs agenda.

Two, we wanted to take the coverage beyond the must-do parts such as recruitment, training, retention, and administrative support activities, and focus on the next level of challenges as the industry matures.

We are entering the year 2008-09 with a lot of new challenges for the Indian export services industry, which accounts (so far, at least) for a bulk of the Indian IT industrys employment. There is the threat of US recession, the extent of impact of which is yet to be known. There is, of course, the very real fear about US presidential elections politicizing offshoring. Then, there is rupee appreciation, which so far did not cross a threshold, thanks to RBIs active intervention in the form of buying dollars. That is not likely to continue if inflation rates remain high. So, the rupee may rise further.

The export subsidies are also ending in this fiscal. While one may debate how that will affect the long-term future of the Indian IT industry, it will surely mean a lot of readjustment this year.

Finally, the domestic industry in Indiaacross all sectorsis giving a tough competition to the IT exports industry for manpower.

As the recently released Hewitt Salary survey shows, it is domestic industries such as real estate, retail, and telecom that are seeing maximum hikes in salaries while the IT and BPO industries have seen drops in salary hike rates.

On the other hand, the growth story will, by and large, continue. With more companies coming to India for getting access to local talent, the war for talent will only intensify. Indian companies will try to move up the value chain. And there is, and will be, a lot of effort, both by the industry and the government, to increase talent pool, by training non-engineers, as done by leading companies like TCS and moving to newer locations within India.

All these trends and market changes will have direct impact on how IT firms manage their talent. One overwhelming direction, though, will be moving from purely managing volume, and related metrics such as utilization and productivity, to managing both volume and value, as companies try to get the best return. This section will try to reflect some of those changes by way of coverage.

In this issue itself, you will see a mix: a report on the efforts of one company to build workforce diversity through proactive stance on employing differently abled persons; as well as a trends story on online recruitment, which is still in its infancy.

We will also take up soft issues such as managing expectations of employees in a smaller location vis--vis large cities, the challenges that user companies face in recruiting IT talent and many such crucial but standalone issues. Needless to say, we will need your support in terms of sharing ideas, information and best practices, the same way as you have done in the past.

Good reading!

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