Are Oracle Apps departments over staffed in Indian IT companies?

Going by my first-hand experience in some of the top Indian IT companies, and information from friends in other Indian IT companies, I can safely conclude that the number of resources in Apps department in most of these companies is too huge. The ratio of number of consultant to the number of projects that these companies have is typically very high. One can argue that it is important for companies to have sufficient bench strength so that whenever a new requirement comes, they can ramp up. I definitely agree to this logic, but I feel the bench sizes are way too large, which is absolute unnecessary. I have seen enough people in bench wasting their careers for month’s altogether doing nothing.

Another fact is people on bench cannot expect to have a good appraisal, as they are not billed by the company. As a result they become frustrated and either start creating HR problems or actively start looking for other avenues. In either case, it’s a loss to the organization.

So, the question arises, who is responsible for this messy situation? Typically, each IT department has a Resource Manager, who by sheer hard-work has reached this enviable position. Now, this person requests HR to recruit a certain number of professionals based of projections, forecasts, diameter of project pipe (as most projects are in pipeline) and many other extraneous reasons. Once the consultants are taken on-board, then, starts the quest for fitting in the person into a project. The Sales and Marketing person, the Key Account Manager, the Relationship Manager, the Business Development manager are then given the impossible task of creating “non-existent” work for the client, for which there would be a requirement of additional resources. After long and interesting sessions of PowerPoint presentations and sessions of “IT and Business Gyan”, does the client relent and agree to take on board additional resources. By this time the consultant would have happily spent half a year on bench adding no value to the organization.