India has recently surpassed US as the largest consumer market of smartphones. With the rising number of the digital native generation consumers this demand is only poised to grow further. More than 40 percent of all mobile phones sold in Q4 2015 in India were smartphones. Samsung and Micromax which dominate the Indian smartphone market, have already raised a huge demand for skilled engineers to manage and repair smartphones.
Hardware plays a major enabling role for us to stay connected with one another. High-end laptops, HD cable and iPhones are found even in the most unsuspected parts of India. We are a nation of people hungry for electronics.
The make in india initiative has also emphasised plans to convert India into a hub for manufacturing electronics. The fact that market researchers do not even check mobile phones while collecting information about SEC data due to their ubiquitous presence bears testament to this. We go to the fanciest malls to purchase these gadgets, but if anything goes wrong we visit the local handyman.
But on hearing the price of repair, very often one is confused between repairing and simply buying a new device. A similar thought has been reflected in the career choices students are make when it comes to IT. There is an increase in the number of students wanting to learn app development and a drop in the number of students wanting to learn hardware, which is essentially the backbone of IT.
At present our education system is heavily tilted in favour of software courses especially at the higher levels of education. This can be attributed to a large demand of entry level executives in the booming IT & IT sectors and as a result hardware has been largely neglected. System Administration, Animation & Graphics, Python, DBA, computing languages, SAS and cloud computing are some of the most popular courses. Whereas network security, desktop engineering and CCNA are the most popular courses for directly dealing with hardware and networking.
Hardware and software have a stronger symbiotic relationship now than ever before. From old mobile phones to even cars, performance of hardware can be significantly improved with a simple software update to their computer control unit. For one to be successful IT, it is vital to have a thorough understanding of what we one is ‘programming’ for it to actually b e effective.
With the government initiatives in motion to set up smart cities and firms warming up to digitization, experts are bullish on the market hiring. However, considering the statistics, a massive crunch in the number of skilled hardware professionals required is expected. With automation sweeping in changes in the industry, a candidate having holistic and in depth knowledge in both Hardware and Software domains will be an invaluable asset for organizations to invest in and create revolutionary products and services for the next generation.
The author is Siddarth Bharwani, VP, Jetking Infotrain limited, an IT and IMS training Institute