As the country has been going through a reskilling revolution over the past 2-3 years with increasing emphasis on life-long learning, a professional has to be both a generalist and a specialist because that’s where the future is heading, chairperson and co-founder of online learning platform upGrad Ronnie Screwvala told Business Today on the side lines of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday.
“A generalist-and-specialist combination is really where the future is heading. You can’t only be a generalist but you can’t only be a specialist,” he told Business Today TV’s Siddharth Zarabi.
Elaborating on it, he added that one has to be a lot more rounded because there is a 360-degree approach today. For instance, today, a sales person needs to understand data, analytics and digital marketing. “You can’t just have specific knowledge and head down on that knowledge.”
Saying that knowledge one had in the past cannot see one through life, he highlighted that it is not practical for a professional today to expect to go through the next 40 years of their career using only the knowledge gained in their graduation or post-graduation course. The answer lies in a combination of knowledge, soft skills and life-long learning, he added.
Besides, he said, while it would be silly to jump jobs every one or two years, you are not going to be in the same job for more than three, four or five years. “But the lifecycle of where our parents who would do 20 years in a job has gone down to a good constructive 4-5 years on an average, and then settle down at the tail end. Which means domain knowledge expertise has to move the next level.”
Making a case for according more credibility to online learning, he said: When you go to college, you don’t get multiple options. You’ve got to decide whether you want to be a B.E. or B.Com. Therefore, augmented learning is happening in campuses today where I can take a short course of 3 months on data science or data analytics and understand what that means and whether I want to pursue that as a career.
On more and more edtech companies coming up and their soaring valuations and recent layoffs, he said it is no longer good enough to raise funding, but the focus should be on building a real business and building it to last.
“The big thing I worry about today is the intoxication of valuations and the other big thing I worry about it is when you’ve had five years of private equity and you’re bored of PE, then you want to be a listed company, it’s a problem.”
His word of advice to someone looking to be a listed entity in a year is to fill at least 50% of the board with independent directors. “Otherwise, what you’re hearing here as a rhetoric is going to change so drastically that you’re going to feel lost.”
But despite the recent concerns over the possibility of PE funding into India drying up, Screwvala is confident of the capital flow continuing “because the India story is fantastic”. “We are growing and we will be the fastest growing economy in the world for a continued period of time if you look at what is happening in the world. Two, we are a very large demographic market.”
Adding that you need a very good and strong home-grown market and the only other real one as China which is a lot more insulated of their own choice, he said: We are the first and last bastion as far as India is considered as a destination.
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