IT’s bench strength halves as slump-hit companies eye efficiencies
bench strength at top Indian outsourcers has nearly halved in a very short span of time, but that isn’t necessarily a very bad thing for the global services leaders. Higher utilization and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) are helping them drive efficiencies through the talent pyramid as the $254-billion industry rides out its toughest business cycle since the global financial crisis.
“Large IT services companies typically maintained a bench of 20-30% of their workforce. This has significantly reduced, with many companies now reporting a bench size of around 10%,” said Krishna Vij, business head at staffing firm TeamLease Digital. “This shift can be attributed to increased focus on upskilling and training bench employees for redeployment.”
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Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteIIT DelhiCertificate Programme in Data Science & Machine LearningVisitMIT xPROMIT Technology Leadership and InnovationVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Product ManagementVisitData by recruitment firm Xpheno shows that calibration of the bench across IT majors has occurred since the start of FY25 (April 2023) and the fiscal closed with an estimated 170,000 bench size. This is a dip from the peak of 212,000 bench size that was recorded in JFM2023 (January, February, March last year).
“As adversities sustained, margin pressures have remained high through FY2024 and this saw enterprises tightening their bench to control costs,” said Xpheno’s IT staffing business head, Sundar Eshwar.
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