Zinnov, a leading Management Consulting firm, on Wednesday, released its annual ‘Compensation and Benefit Study 2008 report’.
The study spread over the Bangalore, Pune, NCR and Chennai regions, covers compensation and benefits data of 40 product development companies.
The study mentions that if one discounts the Pune outliers, Bangalore continues to be the highest in its pay scale followed by Chennai, Pune and NCR. In addition,  the study also states that Pune witnessed an increase of almost 15 – 20 per cent in the average salary since last year. This increase could be attributed to the growing demand for talent pool in the city due to a number of companies setting up its operations in Pune.
Also organisations who are in the initial phase of setting up their operations, aim to be above the 90th percentile of the market, thereby taking the salary levels higher.
Furthermore, the average increment in 2007 was found to be around 14 per cent.
 “However, if one discounts the Pune outliers, the average salaries for the engineering positions across product companies in India have come down by 3 per cent.” said Ms Shamim T, Director Human Capital Consulting, Zinnov.
The expected average increment in 2008 is about 15 per cent, with few organisations planning to give almost 30% hike to its top performers and rare skill holders.