13 APTECH Adventurous And Ambitious

With

over 1,500 centers spanning 30 countries, Aptech continued to figure prominently

among institutes providing education and training in IT.

For this leader, the fiscal 1999-00 was marked by a 40%

growth as compared to 20% the year before. It recorded a revenue of Rs 511 crore.

Of this, the maximum was earned during the second quarter of the fiscal. The

year saw its share of exports, in terms of revenue, increasing to Rs 51 crore

from Rs 17 crore in 1998-99.

Aptech

has always taken hard decisions in pursuit of its aims, and won each time. In

1998, it had restructured its business units in order to grow more aggressively.

Earlier in 1992-93, it had decided to introduce specific courses oriented

towards professionals, and made conscious efforts to give each of its courses a

different branding. Thus were born the four divisions of Aptech–Aptech, Arena

Multimedia, Asset International and OnlineVarsity. Together, they enabled Aptech

to soar to new heights in the last fiscal.

All

these different brands firmly established their bases–offering courses ranging

from basics to the currently hot Java and ecommerce. Arena Multimedia had over

150 centers training both students and professionals. Apart from having

international tie-ups with Macromedia Inc and Adobe Systems, it also held the

ISO 9001 certification for its educational support services. With a 60% market

share in multimedia training, Arena proved that Aptech’s dictum of the product

being the brand could actually pay off. Aptech’s training arm, Asset

International, had a reach of 120 training centers across 10 countries, having

tie-ups with Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Novell and Sylvan Prometric.

Aptech entered the realm of the net with its online division,

OnlineVarsity, which served as an alternative medium of delivery as well as a

brand extension of Aptech. It was built on a Lotus platform and delivered

through Wipro Net.

In the race for providing training to IT professionals,

Aptech formed many alliances. It started providing its students an international

qualification through distance learning in alliance with the Regents College, a

US-based virtual classroom. On the domestic front, Aptech had a BCA course in

association with the Directorate of Correspondence courses and Distant

Education, Bangalore University. The Manipal Academy of Higher Education also

offered its BIT course through Aptech’s centers.

By the end of the year, Aptech plans to introduce its

OnlineVarsity in other parts of Asia. Courses like software project management,

software quality assurance and datawarehousing are on the anvil. It also plans

to introduce a packaged course on customer relationship management. Aptech feels

that bandwidth will not pose a threat to its plans, with increased activities

among ISPs and the likely resolution of the bandwidth issue.

Aptech has dared to innovate and evolve. Its strengths lie in

the adoption of such plans. In 1999-00, Aptech became more web-centric, which

was in tune with the times. Both Arena and OnlineVarsity spoks of Aptech’s

zeal in this direction. Aptech also pursued a policy regarding changes in

courses.

The shift in focus towards the web has not sounded the death knell for

multimedia. Aptech’s success in the web arena also means success in

creativity. With its many branches, Aptech is all set to prosper. Its past

records vouch for its foresight and readiness to innovate. The right decisions

could usher in a period of growth for this giant in IT training. DQ