Corporate Training Booster
If exports were one extraordinary success story for the Indian IT training industry in FY 2005-06, the other boost came from increasing gains from corporate and institutional training. Revenues from corporate training witnessed an impressive 47% upswing; in comparison, individual training revenues fell by 5%. In between these lines, hides the story of the changing dynamics of the Indian IT training industry where corporate training is becoming more important than individual retail business. NIIT and Aptech showed the way here again, though smaller players like SQL Star, karRox and Pragati Software did get some business.

For NIIT, corporate/institutional training accounted for 63% of its net revenues of Rs 450 crore; its European subsidiary became operational even as it bagged the first training outsourcing order from a European electronics major. It launched its new product, eGuru, for corporates. The partnership with Intel and SBI bore fruit while on the government front it managed to win new contracts from Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Tripura. Aptech, on the other hand, bagged large contracts from Indian Oil, GAIL, NTPC and Indian Railways. For corporates, Aptech ventured beyond IT and offered training in soft skills in retail and BFSI. It offered mutual fund trainings to Mahindra Finance and UTI, while for a large retail client the company set up four dedicated centers in four different cities. Recently, it forayed into aviation too in partnership with Avalon Academy.

Individual Training: Changing Colors
Though individual retail training numbers have dwindled, it still accounted for a bulk of the revenues for all major players. In metros the demand was more for short term specialized courses, while students in B and C class cities preferred long-term career courses. NIIT's multiple-track GNIIT program for IT career aspirants continued to drive the company's revenues in  2005-06. The program, “co-designed” with the IT and BPO industry, ensured an 18% growth in the placement of GNIIT students. Aptech also introduced its new career courses with one-year internship-in a year it proclaimed as “Year of Placement” these found takers especially in the smaller cities.

Higher demand was for shorter courses like the ones Aptech offered under the SSI brand, on technologies like C++, Java and .NET. Its online semester exam programs for Symbiosis and Wellingkars too gained popularity, encouraging the company to also offer TOEFL exams. NIIT too launched a range of specialized, fast-track education programs for engineering and IT students-not only did these provide curriculum support and enhanced skills in new technologies, but also global certifications from IT vendors under the brand umbrella of “NIIT Edgeineer”. ANIIT, a special accelerated program for engineering students, enabled them to gain employment in major IT organizations, through NIIT's National Placement Network and Industry Alliances.

As corporate training picked up, companies launched new packages and activity tied-up with business and state government

One area in retail individual training that saw good growth during FY 2005-06 was multimedia. Though the Aptechs and NIITs provided multimedia as part of their total bouquet, it was the niche players like MAAC and Zee Institute of Creative Arts (ZICA) which scored there, mainly due to their ability to make students work in live environments in their own studios. With the animation and visual effects industry witnessing a boom in the country leading to acute shortage of skilled manpower, these institutes offered courses in all facets of pre- and post-production techniques. Apptech, too followed suit with its one year Arena courses now offering live training in studios besides interaction with the entertainment industry.

While the multimedia boom riding on the animation/VFX wave was understandable, good old hardware training still retained its niche, healthy position. Probably with managed services becoming mainstream for Indian enterprises, there were more demand for hardware and networking engineers and, consequently, institutes like Jetking and CMS Computers thrived. Jetking's popular JCHNP program prospered with 22,501 enrolling this year against 16,489 last year. Jetking was present in 73 centers across 52 cities in India with 15 new centers added in FY 2005-06. On the hardware front, there was a growing trend of students opting for certifications like CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Administrator), RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) and  CWNA ( Certified Wireless Network Administrator). CMS leveraged its SI expertise to offer its students internship in live situations at its client premises.

Rajneesh De
rajneeshd@cybermedia.co.in

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