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Upskilling Beyond Employees: Tech Giants Training Clients & Campuses
Upskilling Beyond Employees: Tech Giants Training Clients & Campuses

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For the tech industry, the exploding demand for digital talent across all sectors isn’t just a challenge—it’s a massive growth opportunity. As AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics disrupt traditional business models from healthcare to finance and manufacturing, companies everywhere are scrambling to build digital capabilities. But the reality is clear: hiring alone won’t bridge the skills gap. This urgent need for reskilling and upskilling positions technology service providers at the forefront of workforce transformation, offering them a chance to lead with innovative, AI-driven learning platforms and strategic partnerships that embed tech skilling at the core of enterprise talent development.

Demand for Digital Workforce Increases Across Sectors

In an era defined by rapid technological advancement, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and data analytics are reshaping the way industries operate. While these innovations have been associated with the tech sector, their impact extends far beyond it—transforming healthcare through predictive diagnostics, revolutionizing finance with intelligent automation, and enhancing agriculture with precision farming. As these technologies become deeply integrated into everyday operations, digital skills are no longer optional; they’re critical for professionals in every field. And thus, we see a rise in demand for digital talent across enterprises globally.

Source: Avasant and NASSCOM Digital Enterprise Survey 2025, N=511 respondents

With AI making inroads across enterprises, digital and AI talent hiring is expected to see a rise in the coming year with ~60% of the enterprises surveyed highlighting the same.

Hiring Alone is Not a Solution

Moreover, organizations are also recognizing that hiring alone can't fill the gap, and thus reskilling the existing workforce is becoming a strategic imperative. Technologies such as AI, automation, and cloud computing are rapidly evolving, roles are being redefined, and new skill sets in these emerging technologies are becoming essential. This shift is prompting organisations globally to invest in large-scale upskilling and reskilling initiatives.

Skilling – A Growing Opportunity for Tech Services Companies to Support Clients

The growing need for technology upskilling and reskilling is opening-up new opportunities for the tech industry to partner with their clients in driving workforce development initiatives.

  • Infosys has signed several deals with players across auto and healthcare sector to create learning platforms. Recently it has partnered with Siemens AG to advance its digital learning initiatives with generative AI. The collaboration is designed to offer personalized upskilling and development opportunities to more than 250,000 Siemens employees worldwide. Siemens’ digital learning platform, My Learning World—accessible anytime, anywhere—will integrate Infosys Topaz, an AI-first solution powered by generative AI, along with Infosys Wingspan, a next-generation enterprise learning platform driven by AI.
  • TCS iON delivers technology-driven solutions aimed at transforming education and skill development for organizations, with a distinct emphasis on creating a 'phygital' platform that seamlessly bridges the physical and digital worlds.
  • In April 20, Accenture announced a collaboration with Singapore-based United Overseas Bank (UOB) to transform customer experience using advanced technologies, including generative AI. As part of this partnership, Accenture also committed to upskilling UOB’s 27,000 employees through its LearnVantage platform.

Learning Platforms – The New Investment Focus

Furthermore, as this opportunity expands, organizations are actively working to enhance and refine their learning platforms.

  • Accenture has started making acquisitions as part of its planned investment of 1 billion over the next three years in its learning platform ‘LearnVantage’.
    • May 24Udacity for Data, AI and tech reskilling and upskilling
    • Nov 24Award Solutions which focuses on training and consulting in telecom-related skills. Partnered with ETS to introduce a consistent, reliable approach to measuring job skills and matching workers with relevant work positions.
    • April 25 Talent Sprint to drive growth through key university certifications and high impact bootcamps, creating trained talent pools for enterprises and governments
    • May 25 - Ascendient Learning to expand learning and certification capabilities with instructor-led training and industry-recognized credentials

 

These recent deals and acquisitions reflect a shift in strategy—where companies once favoured collaborations with edtech firms or universities to develop curated training content, are now seeking technology companies as partners who can deliver comprehensive, end-to-end platforms that seamlessly integrate into their broader learning and development ecosystems. This shift is largely influenced by the experience of technology services firms in building internal talent, having invested significant time and resources over the years to train fresh engineering graduates and prepare them for industry roles.

“The narrative that we had for the last four to six years back is now picking up steam. Talent transformation as an agenda is becoming big and it will manifest in different ways. It will mean adoption of learning platforms like Wingspan, but it will also kind of get into moving the traditional learning place to a partner like Infosys which in turn provides a 360-degree kind of partnership”

Thirumala Arohi, Executive Vice-President, Head- Education, Training and Assessment, Infosys

“This opportunity will only grow further. These deals may not be large, but gives strategic play to services players”

Pareekh Jain, founder of Pareekh Consulting and EIIR Trend

Another key emerging trend is the expansion of this skilling focus on the incoming workforce through industry-academia partnerships, which are attempting to bridge the gap between the academic learning and industry expectations.

Some examples for the same include:

  • IBM’s recent partnership with Woxen University, where IBM is helping in curriculum redesigning and training students on real life case examples.
  • SAP and BITS Pilani have partnered on an SAP STAR Program for M. Tech Software Engineering where students can receive on-the-job and structured development and coaching from leaders in technology, while pursuing their post-graduation.

The accelerating demand for digital talent is reshaping the workforce landscape—and technology service providers are uniquely positioned to lead this transformation. By leveraging their internal learning platforms and forging deeper client partnerships, tech companies can turn the reskilling imperative into a strategic growth driver. Equally important is bridging the gap for future talent by collaborating with academia to equip students with industry-relevant skills from day one. This holistic approach not only addresses today’s skills shortage but also builds a pipeline of job-ready professionals, positioning tech firms at the heart of the evolving digital economy. The time to act is now, and the opportunity for tech companies to shape the workforce of tomorrow has never been greater.

Taking this discussion forward, we deep-dive on how Academia in India is reshaping to bridge the skills gap, Stay tuned for our next report "The Industry Ready Campus: Preparing Students for Tomorrow’s Careers" launching at the Nasscom People Summit 2025 on 2nd July 2025. Download your copy of the report on Nasscom Community.

 

References:

Business Standard

The Ken

TCSion

Woxen University

SAP

Accenture News


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Neha Jain
Senior Analyst

Neha Jain

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