Satyam partners with ACS, fights IT skills shortage
Indian computer services giant Satyam has partnered with the Australian Computer Society (ACS) Foundation in a scholarship program designed to annually train 100 Australian graduates with on-the-job IT skills.
The scholarship program, which involves spending three months training with Satyam in India, kicked off earlier this year, with the first set of graduates expected to return to Australia in December.
John Ridge, executive director of the ACS Foundation, said the scholarship program is a great opportunity for new graduates to get "their foot in the door".
"One of the big components that a lot of students miss out on is being able to get their first job -- this is giving them the opportunity to get the relevant industry experience, which in my view ... is vital and should be a mandatory part of all courses, he said."
"There is also a valid opportunity or argument for people that may have taken a non-IT major -- a business or some other degree -- to look for opportunities in the IT industry," Ridge added.
Satyam's country manager, Deepak Nangia, said the deal came around, in part, because of a need for the global outsourcing giant to recruit more 'leaders'.
"The more leaders and better leaders you have, the better you can sustain a growth (from 40,000 to 100,000 staff) over the next few years, which is what the plans are." -- Nangia said Satyam is growing at a rate of 35 percent year on year.
"The DNA and the fabric of [our] organisation goes through such a huge change each year, the only thing that can hold it together is the program of how we manage our people, how we train them and how we can embed some of our culture in them. Otherwise, the culture of the organisation can change every six months," he said.
While Nangia hopes that successful candidates stay on, they won't be forceed to do so. "As a philosophy, we don't tie in any [associate], no matter where they come from, to work for us."
"The first batch of trainees come back in December, which works out to 100 training days. Once they are back we expect to have them in our project and development centres -- in Sydney and Melbourne," Nangia said.