He took over Aptech in troubled times, when the company was undergoing a
demerger into two separate entities, and when the industry itself was just
beginning to feel the pinch of the slowdown. Viewed in this backdrop, his
performance has been credible. And to top it, he has a global strategy with
which he plans to hunt on new ground and
come out winner…
The magic mix for the IT training industry in these times, given that the
peak season for registrations is over and this has been the worst year so far…
In a way, the year’s not been all bad. There are lots of smaller players
that have downed shutters over the past few months, or consolidated operations.
As far as Aptech is concerned, quality and placements should improve next year,
given that the number of players in the market would be fewer. The IT industry
is still growing at a healthy 30%, as charted out by Nasscom, clearly, IT is
still a great career option. I expect the turnaround to happen by April next
year. Our reading is that sentiment has already turned around to some extent.
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Slowdown in registrations, and Aptech’s global initiatives…
Overseas, training is more corporate-centric and depends on budgets, and
therefore, the industry has taken a hit. In India, there’s a different
scenario altogether. Internationally, we have done very well over the last nine
months and today, we have 225 centers in 45 countries. Altogether 15% of our
training revenues come from overseas. We have 53 centers and 10,000 students in
China alone. In this backdrop, our international operations have not been
impacted too much, except for Indonesia and Malaysia, which never really were
our focus areas.
Registrations at Aptech, impact on revenues, forecasts and future
potential…
Sure, we are feeling an overall pinch, and are down 40%, but who isn’t? But
like I said, there is already a slight improvement that’s visible.
Any dilution in selection and eligibility criteria for high-end courses…
There’s no question of bending eligibility norms to get in more students.
Simply put, high-end courses are tough, and recruitment without tests won’t
work anyway, as any student given an easy entry would be out pretty soon as he
won’t clear first set of exams within six months. But yes, the story is
different in the elementary courses, where anyone can apply and be admitted.
Of late, there’s been a spate of tieups and agreements involving Aptech
recently. Targeted strategy behind this, or triggered by the need to find newer
revenue sources…
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Our demerger into two separate entities–one dealing in softweare and the
other in IT training–is almost through, and with this, my focus on the
training business has to increase manifold. This is the only business that I
will be managing directly and we can hedge our risks.
When there’s only one business to manage and all the eggs are in one
basket, the advantage is that management focus on that business increases. Also,
the target is to emerge as a stronger training organization over the next month
itself. And I could chant outnumbers, but what does the customer want at the end
of the day anyway–value… size and numbers don’t really matter. Last
quarter, we were placing 130 students per day, against 100 in the beginning of
the year. The jobs we are finding for them are wide-ranging–both in the IT
industry and otherwise. Depending on the eligibility and the suitability of the
students, we place them in different courses. Also, we are seeing a huge
increase in demand for multimedia courses, where Arena Multimedia, our
subsidiary, comes in. Multimedia is growing fast, and Aptech is the only IT
training company in the country offering these courses. The demand is from
various segments–advertising, publishing, Web designing, interior designing,
films, graphic visualizing, and so much more…
Targeted focus for the coming year…
We are looking at a five-year time-frame for our strategy, culminating in
2005. What is happening today is only an aberration. We have been charting out a
strategy over the last few months and a lot of work has been put in… you
should see the results soon. The vision that we have is that we want to become a
global corporation and a world-class organization. We want market leadership in
all the segments and geographies that we function in. We need to focus all our
systems and processes towards this and benchmark them against the competition.
We should be through with this process by June 2001.
Ours is a three-pronged strategy, and all of our three businesses are being
developed as global businesses to contend with –retail education, multimedia
education and corporate training.
RAJEEV NARAYAN in New Delhi