Infosys bench should work on startups
By Techgirl

Sramana Mitra is a well known tech success story in USA.  After a Masters from MIT, Sramana founded 3 successful companies and consults with a number of organization.  She also writes for international media including Forbes. Sramana recently blogged about the 18,000 people on the bench at Infosys and offered advice on how some of them can boot their own startups. 

For those unfamiliar with the term ‘bench’, it is where employees (new as well as seniors) sit while waiting for projects. Sometimes they make good use of their free time by training on new hardware/software, others work for a few hours in projects to get experience, and there are many who just sit at home waiting for the phone call to say they are needed for a project.  ‘Benched’ techies are mostly paid full salaries which may or may not be cut down after a few months.  During the boom days, the primary purpose of a bench was to have employees hired and trained to step in when working employees left.  It was not uncommon to have attrition of 20 percent in IT companies when the market was booming.  Some BPO’s had a turnover of 35-40 percent.

Large IT/BPO companies can have a bench as large as 15-20 percent of its employee strength.

Sramana has just offered the following advice to many of the bright techies on the Infosys bench

“ 
Well, if you guys have a pay check coming from Infosys, not much to do, and presumably a computer with internet connection in your hands, you should form small teams of your own, and start working on your own entrepreneurial ventures.

In September, my Bootstrapping book will come out in India. Read it. I keep harping on the fact that you should try to bootstrap, and not raise money. And here, you are telling me that you have a pay check to finance your bootstrapping phase.

Work in this mode for 6-12 months, pull something together - a business plan, perhaps a prototype, perhaps some prospects, perhaps even some revenues - and then you can leave to do it full-time.

I am sorry to hear that 40-50 people - young people like you - have such a negative, hopeless approach to life.

Take control of your destiny, otherwise Infosys will control it, and it will frame you in splendid mediocrity all your life.
“

Sounds like a good idea to me.  Naturally, Infosys will not be too pleased to hear that its hardware/software is being used by its benched techies to launch their own startups. Sramana has clarified that Infosys is a metaphor for all large tech companies in India.

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog http://techgirltalk.blogspot.com