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"The quality of our services will help us sail through the present crisis" Financial Express - July 25, 2001

The information technology education and training division of Tata Infotech remains quite bullish about the scope for IT education in the country despite the slowdown in the economy. Speaking to Kavita Alexis of The Financial Express, Tata Infotech Education Service’s division manager,
Mr Rahul Thapan, said: "There is an upward trend in enrolment for IT courses from this month onwards." The company has chalked out plans to increase the number of centres to 400 from existing 200 by the end of the current fiscal with investment in the range of Rs 50-60 crore. Excerpts from the interview:

Could you elaborate on the new initiatives launched by Tata Infotech in the field of IT education?
We are in the process of repositioning ourselves as a provider of technology education integrating technology skills, application skills and business skills. In today’s market, corporates are looking for people who can provide complete solutions to their customers. So we decided to impart a holistic programme that none of our competitors are providing at present.

We provide skills in vertical domain areas like telecom, banking and insurance. The courses are structured after thorough discussions with the industry and other experts in the field.

We are also planning a course for the Internet service provider industry in our centres in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai for which about 900-1,000 people have already enrolled.

Could you give details of your plan to expand educational services division?
We have already invested about Rs 50-60 crore in expansion. At present, Tata Infotech has 200 centres in India, which we plan to increase to 400 by March 2002.

We have 10 overseas centres that will rise to 50 by the next financial year. We are looking at two different business models in our expansion plans. The centres will provide long-term courses in meteros whereas non- metro centres are for short-term courses alone.

What is your mode of operation?
We have company owned centres in Delhi, Pune, Calcutta and Chennai. Rest are run by our affiliates, but we directly provide faculties, courseware and career advancement services for them.
We are planning to set up a company- owned centre in Bangalore too, considering the strategic importance of the city as an information technology hub. We already have 15-25 centres in the city.

The IT industry in India and abroad is passing through a severe slowdown. In this situation, do you think it is prudent to invest on expansion?
We are conscious about the slowdown. A centre is opened after a thorough market research. We are confident that the quality of our services would help us to sail through the present crisis.

We have concept-based programmes like G-Tech and E-tech targeting students who have completed 10+2.

Under these programmes, we also offer the option to study abroad and has tied up with foreign universities. The duration of G-Tech course is more than 700 hours and the fees is Rs 60,000 and E-Tech course is for 12 months with a fees of Rs 40,000.

We also provide a range of short term courses under the brand name ‘ambition’.

Do you offer placement services to your students?
We provide career advancement services like six months internship in different companies for those who have completed long term courses. We also offer a paid placement service by which we send the student for three interviews collecting a fees of Rs 3,000. We have placed about 100-125 people in various companies in the last two-to-three months.