Bangalore home to Highest average pay scale: study by Zinnov

Bangalore continues to rule the roost in terms of highest pay scale, followed by Chennai, Pune and NCR, a recent study by management research and consultancy firm, Zinnov, has revealed.

According to the report titled, “Compensation and Benefit Study 2008,” the expected average increment in salary in 2008 is about 15 percent (one percent more than last year), with a few organizations planning to offer almost 30 percent hike to its top performers and rare or special skill holders.

Pune saw average salary hike of almost 1520 percent since last year. The report suggests that this increase could be attributed to the growing demand for talent pool in the city due to a number of companies setting up its operations in Pune.

However, average salary for engineering positions across product development companies in India have come down by 3 percent. “About 40 percent of the average talent pool among the participating companies are with 0-4 years experience,” said Shammi T., director (human capital consulting), Zinnov, suggesting that the reason for the dip in salary is the increased hiring at junior levels.

According to Zinnov, the dip in average salary could indicate stabilization. However, it could also mean that organizations, which are increasingly offering cash-based incentives such as retention bonus, are also trying to keep the salary levels under control.

Indian software product development companies are also facing a dearth of product managers and technical architects, Zinnov said.

There are around 800 product managers and 2,500 technical architects in India though the demand for the same is three times more, it said, adding that the supply-demand gap has led to sudden hike in their salaries.

The average salaries of product managers rose by 25 to 30 percent, Shammi said.

The typical job profile of a product manager was to interact with clients, understand their needs and translate it into a product while the profile of a technical architect was to conceptualise the product and ensure solutions that would reach the masses, she explained, adding, “The demand for these two categories have gone up, with a lot of product development happening in India.”

Zinnov also suggested that Indian engineering product offshoring could look forward to a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23 percent by 2012.

Bangalore (312), Pune (96) and NCR (87) are home to more than half of the estimated 594 captive R&D centers located in India. Chennai (39) and Hyderabad (55) also have a large number of R&D centers.

However, increase in operating costs of captive R&D centers in India by more than 10 percent over the last one year has forced MNCs to restructure their human resource functions and policies that includes implementing measures to improve productivity of engineers (88 percent), hire more junior talent (63 percent), adopt stringent performance appraisal (38 percent) and reduce travel of executives.

Regarding Consulting Opportunities / Market update on KPO/Consulting etc..mail to sachith@recruiseindia.com

Innovative India: Insights For The Thinking Manager by Parmit Chadha

A very good book written by Mr Parmit Chadha now the Director of SDG india Practice

About the Book Innovation is key to competitive advantage, as most Indian managers will agree. Yet, only a few of them believe that their innovation outcomes are as—or better than—expected.

Innovative India: Insights for the Thinking Manager examines the importance of innovation for organizations to grow in a corporate environment that is constantly changing and fiercely competitive. Drawing on years of in-depth research and extensive experience in the Indian industry, Parmit Chadha and Radhika Chadha present an integrated perspective of innovation in organizations as a system comprising the ‘3 Gears’—strategy, culture and processes; three gears that have to mesh perfectly for innovation to be a major profit driver in any set-up. Based on extensive surveys, interviews and real-life cases, the book explores the success of groundbreakers in the corporate sector such as Tata Indica, Tasty Bite, TeNet and Kaya to illustrate how the ‘3 Gears’ work.

In a wide-ranging discussion, the authors also address questions including:

• Is there a weak linkage between innovation strategy and overall organizational strategy?
• What should be the CEO’s role in driving innovation?
• Is the first-mover advantage really critical?
• Do Indian organizations encourage diversity of opinion?
• Can the corporate sector learn innovation from the non-corporate sector?
• Does the Indian education system discourage creativity and risk-taking?
• Are entrepreneurs supported or hindered by the Indian innovation ecosystem?
• Can there be a quintessentially Indian model of innovation that goes beyond Japanese ‘Kaizen’ or American ‘big-idea’?

Innovative India provides an opportunity for thinking managers to introspect on their organization’s need for innovation as well as a framework to base their strategies on. This is an important book, not just for managers, but also for anyone who wants to know why innovation, despite being so sought after, is so difficult to implement.\

There is a lot of experince that speaks in the book, combining a lot of thoughts of Manager and serior people in the industry about Innovation.

Good book to read for an Entrepreneur and it made lot of sense and i would relate to lot of things being an Entrepreneur.

Suggest each and everybody mostly the Entrepreneur and the young Upcoming/aspiring Managers to read the book.

Sachith@recruiseindia.com