Enterprise Applications: the new job market

With college degree enrollments of 352,303 and university enrollments of 741,092, according to Bureau of Statistics survey, it’s heartening to see how the hope of education fails when one finishes graduation and starts looking for a “good job” in vain. With little knowledge of what employers require in terms of skill and education most parents send their children to colleges and universities hoping that they will become a source of income for the family and will be able to support the family financially.

Getting a good job
Most coveted and sought after schools, for long, have been Medical and Engineering Colleges and while every one longs to become a doctor or an engineer, not everyone gets there. When they are out of options, some start thinking about pursuing an MBA, others about Computer Sciences, others about Accounting and yet others about just getting any degree that can get them a Bachelors or Masters qualification. With little support available in schools and colleges about career advice, students start running after degrees here and there like headless chicken. Even when one has selected the right degree, given the market demand and what employers are looking for, quality of education determines to a large extent whether or not one will get a job or a good salary. With recent down turn in the job market even the best business schools in Pakistan have not been able to fully employ all of their graduates.
While doctors, engineers, chartered accounts, teachers etc have been more known to the general population of Pakistan information technology (IT) education in general and Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) education in specific has been hidden from many. The world of enterprise application has been full of opportunities for those who know the magical land but it has been invisible to a large educated population in Pakistan.
It’s the world where world giants like Oracle and SAP rule with kingdoms of their own. Oracle has annual revenues of $35.6 billion, 380,000 customers, spans over 145 countries, has 108,000 employees and a network of 14 million developers community. SAP has annual revenues of $12.5 billion, 176, 000 customers, spans over 50 countries and has 54,000 employees. These two are beyond all doubt two formidable rivals in the world of enterprise application. One can see a war of territories, new domains and expansion of wealth. Oracle has been on this spree for the last 5 years spending $40 billion buying about 78 companies. While SAP has relied more on internal growth with the last noticeable acquisition being Business Objects the business intelligence software, but recent buy out of Sybase for $6 billion last year and recent bid to buy Success Factor for $3.4 billion seems to be the start once again. Oracle has been much more aggressive in acquisitions strategy and seems that the spree is not going to end any time soon. This world of ERP applications and war of ever extending the portfolio has many allies that have joined these giants to not only help make these applications better, to deploy them at organisations that desire them and to integrate them with other applications. There are thousands of partners around the globe that sell and deploy these applications. So opportunities are immense whether inside these principal organisations, or at customers or partner networks that deploys these enterprise applications. The question though remains, what is the key to enter this land of opportunities?
Developing the skill is the barrier to entry and not a very easy one for that matter to cross. But the skill is the key itself. Lets take Oracle for example. Whether you take development track, or database track or applications track, you’re in the game of big business. In applications you can choose from financials, supply chain management, customer relationship management, human resources management and several other applications. In this field, experience in one country counts in another, experience in one industry counts in another. With every cycle of deployment you are becoming more valuable no matter where you are positioned across the globe. Enrichment of knowledge is another dimension to these skills. If you are a financial expert you will have to deploy financials applications in all industries whether that’s banking, or FMCG, or manufacturing or distribution or an airline.
Pakistan itself presents a plethora of opportunities. Oracle has more than 1100 clients in Pakistan including some of the largest organisations in Pakistan starting from Mobilink, Telenor, to public sector enterprises.
Let’s take a closer look at Middle East job market in ERP applications. Middle East doesn’t produce many of their own resources in certified enterprise applications and are always looking for consultants from abroad. Having closer affinities with Pakistan, Middle East is a good job destination for job seekers in Pakistan. A major proportion of workers in the Middle East come from India since India produces about 70,000 consultants in Oracle alone. While an ordinary labourer gets only a minimum wage in the Middle East skilled knowledge workers with ERP deployment experience can make anywhere from 25,000 to 35,000 dirhams a month. This is the world of big business which has created hundreds of thousands of jobs for people around the globe. Enterprise application industry has grown at 8.5% to reach $245 billion in 2010 according to a Gartner report and it can definitely create job opportunities for Pakistani professionals. Students and professionals in our country are not aware of enterprise applications. The greater the awareness among our professionals about global prospects of this valuable skill the more people will strive to acquire it.

The writer is Director Outsourcing at Abacus Consulting