Working in an IT company means spending 15 hours at the minimum in office And keep worrying about the market trends. Since
most of the companies are engaged in giving software packages to companies at home and abroad, winning contracts becomes the leit motif for every employee. And to prepare software package tailored to the requirements of the client. The pay is hefty and if the company is wellplaced in the area other benefits do flow.
Well-placed? That is a million dollar question. Many small and medium sized companies find the going tough. And the competition is so intensely neck to neck that some employees end up with spondilitis early in their career. In India it came with a bang in the 90s, first in Bangalore, when the market was quite receptive. Many PSUs and private firms in engineering, fabrication and other areas were keen on product-specific research and software packages to update themselves with the market trends.
This writer had a different experience. I worked in an
advertising firm which was financially secure - belonging to a leading
industrial house – and wanted to try its hand in content advertising. There was no precedence of any company having been engaged in the area, apart from one which did not survive. Online market was huge because of the fact that many big and medium sized companies had their own websites and wanted to tap the ad potential because it was cheaper compared to television and print media. The sheer variety of content to be offered was wide – it could cover various sectors in the industries, commerce, loaning institutions, filim industry, stocks, art, crafts, auction and procurement of machinery, and the works. Even music and philosophy!
It had a well-equipped design team and was looking for contracts to create/modify designs of web sites of various companies. Every day there was brainstorming and content was offered at a price of Rs. 3 per word. Depending on the requirements of companies we prepared content plans but the response was slow and unpredictable. In their annual budgets most of these firms had either not allocated any thing for content advertising or if they did it was meagre. They were still preoccupied with TV and despite the enormous potential online they did not want to put their bets on it.
Though design and content teams won a couple of orders the wait was enormous and a stage was reached when the industrial house found that it was spending more on the infrastructure than the clients it was looking for. For all the market analysis done it was obvious that conditions were not conducive. It had to wind up the operations despite its enormous resources to survive and turn things round. Also there was a crash in the market and nearly 180 dotcoms collapsed.
Now the ad industry in India is buoyant, including the aforesaid industrial house.
May be content too might pick up in the new scenario and net journalism will be a force to reckon with. Yes, the market has its own language and only the exceptional thrive in it.