It’s all about re-skilling dude!

The views mentioned here are solely mine and people could find it extremely radical! If you do, then plz ignore J

For a moment consider yourself being transported back to the 30s and the 40s in the hustling city of Bombay. The famous lines “Yeh Hain Mumbai meri jaan” playing in the background, people leaving for work to the various mills doting the landscape of the city. Bombay then was the nerve centre for mills and rightly called the “mill land”. Infact the history of the mills can be tracked back even further. The story goes like this……

Before the middle of the nineteenth century, India used to export cotton to Britain and then reimport the textile. The impetus towards the founding of a cotton industry came from Indian enterpreneurs. The first Indian cotton mill, “The Bombay Spinning Mill”, was opened in 1854. By 1870 there were 13 mills in Bombay and at the end of 1895 there were 70 mills; growing to 83 in 1915. A period of stagnation set in during the recession of the 1920’s. In 1925 there were 81 mills in the city. This rapid growth in mills was sustained by a large migration of workers into the city. These workers were initially accommodated in hostels and then the famous “chawls”. The mills filled up Parel and expanded westwards all the way to Worli.

What started off as a decline in the 80s went into a death spiral. By the 1980s a majority of the mills closed down after prolonged strikes. Most of the private mill owners declared their units as “sick” and closed down. State owned mills hung on, trying various options of revival, all in vain. Finally they also caved in. Today the same mill land has acquired a completely different landscape. As a newspaper report put it “CENTRAL Mumbai is acquiring a new landscape, which seeks to obliterate any trace of its vibrant industrial past. The textile mills, which played an important role in the industrialization of Mumbai and evolved around the culture of the city's working class, are now giving way to development of upscale neighborhoods. Mill floors that resounded with the clang of machinery have been converted into shopping arcades, and residential towers have replaced their chimneys in the new skyline”

The point is that a geography/country/region might prove to be most cost effective and attract a set of industries to form a cluster. It would create huge employment opportunities, attract people from other cities and attract thousands students to major in that field. The companies having gained an entry using the cost route would then try to move up the value chain using levers like differentiation and increasing their product/service offerings. Isn’t that what happened to the IT landscape in India. Again, the seeds for growth being planted solely by the entrepreneurs. We managed to convince the world that it is extremely cost-effective to offshore their development work to India, convince them that we have the right talent pool and yes managed to deliver quality. The industry experienced unparalleled growth during the last decade (in the 30% range) and has been the biggest employment creator. It saw large migration of workers to key IT hubs, namely Bangalore and Pune.
But can I say that it would remain the same say 20 years hence. Can things go the mills way? Would all companies have moved to a much more cost effective country by then? Would India no longer be the preferred destination to deliver these services? The answer is I don’t know.
. What I do know is that as an industry slows down and companies look at cutting costs – the middle layer can be an easy target. As you gain more experience you are termed as a “costly” resource and highly susceptible to cost cutting measures Freshers are always the last ones asked to leave, as they are more cost effective. And if it does happen it would happen quicker than what happened to the mills; simply because the world is much more interconnected.

The key is to recognize this fact and be re-skillable. Or even better start developing multiple skills from a very early stage so that you can easily move to the next one, if the need arises. Start looking at areas that interest you. Look at ways and means to upgrade yourself. Reading, more reading, helping someone out with his work, showing interest and learning new areas of work. Check if you can work on them during your weekends. Basically by the time you are 40 you should have abstracted your skill level to a level where you are not viewed as a sector/industry specialist but someone who could manage the delivery of a large IT project/ or manage the administration of a school / manage a services business.

This is no fool proof solution – but I feel it’s better than not doing anything!