IIMB Management Review

Journal of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Capacity Planning for Human Resources in the Software Industry

Prof. Janat Shah, Ramkumar Ranganathan and D Samanth
2001
Working Paper No
168
Body

The software industry in India has witnessed tremendous growth in the past few years and is poised to become the industry of the new millennium for the country. With manpower or intellectual capital being the main driver of this industry, it is imperative that the companies take proactive measures to harness, retain, train and deploy these human resources in the most productive manner possible. Currently, the importance of human resource capacity utilization has been sidelined because of the high revenues/margins involved. With margins running high, the hidden costs of wasted manpower capacity are not apparent on the bottomlines of the companies. But as the industry structure changes, competition from other low cost third-world nations intensifies and growth stabilizes, it will be essential for Indian companies to treat the manpower utilization problem with top priority and streamline their existing manpower planning procedures to remain competitive and maintain their profitability. This paper attempts to build a comprehensive framework for resporce planning for software firm. The proposed framework is then used to develop a quantitative model which can be used as a a decision support system to aid recruitment and training in a software company.

Key words
capacity Planning, Human Resorce planning, Software Industry
wp.iimb_.168.pdf (3.66 MB)

Capacity Planning for Human Resources in the Software Industry

Author(s) Name: Prof. Janat Shah, Ramkumar Ranganathan and D Samanth, 2001
Working Paper No : 168
Abstract:

The software industry in India has witnessed tremendous growth in the past few years and is poised to become the industry of the new millennium for the country. With manpower or intellectual capital being the main driver of this industry, it is imperative that the companies take proactive measures to harness, retain, train and deploy these human resources in the most productive manner possible. Currently, the importance of human resource capacity utilization has been sidelined because of the high revenues/margins involved. With margins running high, the hidden costs of wasted manpower capacity are not apparent on the bottomlines of the companies. But as the industry structure changes, competition from other low cost third-world nations intensifies and growth stabilizes, it will be essential for Indian companies to treat the manpower utilization problem with top priority and streamline their existing manpower planning procedures to remain competitive and maintain their profitability. This paper attempts to build a comprehensive framework for resporce planning for software firm. The proposed framework is then used to develop a quantitative model which can be used as a a decision support system to aid recruitment and training in a software company.

Keywords: capacity Planning, Human Resorce planning, Software Industry
wp.iimb_.168.pdf (3.66 MB)