If major IT players announced hikes in the range of 12-20 per cent, the small and medium enterprises went up to offer 25 per cent increments. "We have given even a 30 per cent hike and that's not a recruit from the market but an employee,'' shrugs an employer, disbelieving the hike himself.

"It is not just about retaining (employees). As an enterprise products company, we need people with domain knowledge," says C K Shastri, managing director, Intense Technologies. "The crunch is in terms of the domain knowledge, such as people working in CRM, retail or any other technical area such as mobile applications etc. Those with this domain knowledge are being grabbed by employers," says B Krishnamurthy, former global vice-president at Wipro and professor at Centre for Oraganisational Development.