Why an IT professional needs domain competency?

Information Technology is not just about the technology – it’s about understanding the business, which drives the technology. While senior BD professionals talk to the client CIOs and CTOs, you interact with the client’s IT team on an on-going basis.

Clients are not anymore looking for a low cost IT shop! They are looking for IT partners, who can understand and solve their business problems. Therefore IT companies, in turn, are paying much more importance to building teams, with better business domain knowledge, who can speak in the client’s language, ask relevant questions, and understand the project goals completely. The technical knowledge, combined with an understanding of the business domain, makes an IT professional, a well-rounded employee.

Suppose, you are working for a Banking project. The client’s IT team says “As this module connects to an RTGS settlement module, real-time General Ledger updates are a must”. This is complete Sanskrit to you! What are you going to do?

So, what kind of domain knowledge must you build? –

What kind of domain knowledge does an IT professional require? Obviously, that depends on which industries Indian IT typically gets business from.  Here is list of professional courses in finance for IT professionals, based on the revenue breakup of an IT company.

Ø  Banking, Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI)

Ø  Healthcare

Ø  Telecom

Ø  E-commerce

Ø  Retail

You see that BFSI comes first. That’s because the Banking and Finance industry contributes 30-40% of an IT company’s revenues! So this THE best place to start. The other big advantage is, if you are planning an MBA, this domain knowledge will really help – that’s not true of the other domains.

Right. But how to build the required domain knowledge?

Look at the business goal of the project-

Sitting at your desk and writing code in isolation is not a great idea, in the current business scenario. First, try and understand what this project is trying to achieve. Do some reading on what you don’t understand, in every team meeting you have with clients, take notes of business terms, and look up, what you don’t understand.

Do a good certification course –

This is very effective, as it not only reflects in your knowledge and performance but also you gain a certification on your CV. For instance, if your client is in retail domain, a certification in Manhattan Inventory Optimization tool or any BI tool will be very useful. Similarly, if your client is in BFSI (which is the highest revenue generator for most of the IT companies), remember, to get a good certification – which is the US perspective. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) along with FLIP, offers 3 such programs – Capital Markets International, Banking Fundamentals International and Investment Banking Operations – International. Here is a guide to the ‘Best certification courses in banking and finance courses, for IT Professionals’.