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Follow UsPramod Khera nurtures a big dream. The CEO of Aptech Ltd's Rs 404-crore global education & training business, believes that by 2002, his company will train a total of 10 lakh students a year and half of that number (5 lakh) would be through the Internet. So there he is, leading the show from the front. Under his stewardship, the company has expanded from 912 training centers in 10 countries to 2,245 centers in 42 countries. Yet, he's convinced that his student days are not over yet. "I firmly believe that life can be equated to a continuous classroom experience," he told Alokananda Chakraborty ofagencyfaqs!. After logging 15 years in the IT industry, it is natural for him to believe that "the IT revolution is going to influence our lives in all possible manner - not just materialistically but also socially and spiritually". Talking specifically about Aptech, he said that the company's multi-branding, segmentation strategy will help it outpace the industry growth rate very soon.
Edited Excerpts
The most obvious question first. Has the recent fiasco involving IT training institutes Zap and Wintech affected consumer sentiment regarding IT training in any measure? Would this incident set the IT training market back in any way?
Most definitely. Such incidents do affect consumer sentiment. I would like to think, after this incident, students would be more wary of joining new institutes that try to lure them through attractive ads. I would suggest that henceforth, prospective students should look at the track record of the institute, the placement record and the facilities that its various centres provide before enrolling in any of them.
What is the future of private IT training institutes like NIIT, Aptech etc, considering that a huge chunk of software pros in the US and other places, who have had to pack up and return were products of such institutes? Does this indicate that companies still prefer students who have done their software engineering from recognised universities? How can this mental block be removed?
Irrespective of what a lot of people are saying these days, one thing is for sure. The private training industry in India has contributed significantly to the growth of the IT industry as well as to the general awareness about IT in the country. If one looks around, there would be many students from institutes like Aptech who are working in the IT industry in India and abroad. A lot of our students are also working in the non-IT industry, which leverage IT.
The fact remains that Aptech started IT training in India in 1985, when software exports from India were minuscule. The formal sector of IT education in India had not been able to cope up with the demand of students for industry-relevant courses. It is here that the private training industry came in. They filled in this demand and they are still doing it. So the roles of both the formal and the private institutions are predefined.
Going back a little … Aptech started off as a software-training institute and is now a major player in software development with a considerable presence in overseas markets. However, like NIIT, Aptech is still perceived as an IT training provider. Is this a branding or a communication problem?
Look at the statistics. Training contributed 71 per cent of the revenues for Aptech Ltd in the year 2000. Since the training business is a retail business, the awareness of the brand among students is very high.
On the other hand, there is no need for branding Aptech's software business in the domestic market. Because the consumer, more often than not, is the big corporate. Hence, for the average student, Aptech has always been a brand associated with training and will continue to remain so.
Aptech Ltd was restructured earlier this year and two separate listed companies - one, for its software business and the other for its training business - were flagged off in April 2001. Was this done to correct the perception problem? How would this development help refocus the company's marketing initiatives in the two areas?
The goal is broader. The demerger of the training and the software businesses of Aptech was initiated so that there is greater focus on both the businesses by the respective managements. Also, with their own equity, both these businesses would be able to pursue their own growth strategies, which can involve acquisitions and alliances. These become easier with pure equity from the relevant business. Also, it is possible now to have ESOPs for the employees that can benefit them in proportion to how well their respective businesses are doing. These were the main reasons for demerging both the businesses.
It would seem that Aptech's multi-branding, segmentation strategy has paid off, given its rapid growth over the years. However, two of its SBUs, Arena Multimedia and Asset International, still seem to have an identity problem, in the sense that they are not seen as brands from the Aptech stable. What are you doing to push the Aptech pedigree in these two cases?
Since we are pursuing a multi-branding strategy and not brand extension strategy, the Arena and Asset brands have to stand on their own feet. Our experience is that both these brands have evolved as significant players in their respective areas in the IT training industry and are sizeable businesses in their own right. Therefore, we don't perceive a big problem here.
One criticism against your company has been that Aptech has played second fiddle to NIIT in the Indian market because of its low-key, nebulous communication. While you do a lot of press, your presence on TV is conspicuous by its absence. Is this deliberate?
To an extent, yes. Aptech has always believed in attracting more students through word-of-mouth, rather than through advertisements. So what we've done is, while we have maintained a minimal level of advertising - both in press and on TV - overall, we've advertised significantly lower than many of our competitors. To give you some figures, more than 60 per cent of our students decide to join us because of word of mouth. That's what our studies have indicated.
Talking about our global market, we are present in 42 countries with over 175 centres. This is more than twice of our nearest competitor. We are market leaders in many of the countries that we operate in. And we could not have done that if our courses were not in sync with the needs of those markets. Any marketer - and it doesn't matter which industry he is in - who offers his services/products across various countries has to tailor the offering according to the market. We have done that as well. And I am tempted to say that our strategy of 'think global and act local' has paid us rich dividends.
Since we are pursuing a multi-branding strategy and not brand extension strategy, the Arena and Asset brands have to stand on their own feet. Our experience is that both these brands have evolved as significant players in their respective areas.
The credibility of any IT education institute greatly depends upon placement opportunities available for its students. What has Aptech's done to provide appropriate placement of its students?
Aptech Ltd does have a very strong placement service for its students. Last year, on an average, we placed over a hundred students per day, which we believe is unmatched by any of our competitors. The training or education that we impart cannot be complete without this and we understand that.
Over the past few years Aptech had spread out its business in various niches - the most innovative being the Zed Points, which were set up in association with Zee Television. What has been your scorecard on this front?
Let me explain how the ZED Points worked. The IT education centers or the ZED Points have been set up by ZEE Education, which is part of the ZEE group. The content is supplied by Aptech. Now, Aptech had an alliance with ZEE Education for telecasting Aptech's courses on TV. And the courses were jointly created by Aptech and ZED, with technical inputs coming from Aptech. The idea was that students should be able to watch the programmes on TV and learn all about computers. For hands-on practice, they could do it either at their homes/workplace or come to an Aptech centre or a ZED point. This was a novel idea when it was started. In a sense, Aptech was the pioneer of education through television. And I would say, given the response and the number of enrolments, this experiment has been very successful.
Aptech had launched its Online Varsity a year back to impart IT education on the net. Was this move prompted by the efforts of competition or was it envisioned as a value-added service? To what extent has that enhanced the Aptech equity? How many students do you have on the rolls currently?
Aptech launched the On-line Varsity in February 2000. This was the first comprehensive education portal in India. We had over 70,000 students registering for our on-line courses during the last one year. We are also offering integrated courses through the Aptech On-line Varsity. The reason why Aptech Ltd set up the Aptech On-line Varsity is very simple: to address the needs of students who want to learn at their own time, place and pace. I would say it also provides an excellent medium for corporates for training their employees who could be spread out over different locations. What I am trying to say is we had our eyes on the consumer rather than the competition when we devised the On-line Varsity.
Talking about the net, and standing in the middle of the so-called 'dotcom meltdown', what is your vision of the future?
One has to admit that IT is an integral part of all the major developments happening globally. And the IT industry will continue to grow in the coming decade. India is well positioned to take advantage of this and make an impact in the global market. Coming to Aptech, we have a mission statement which says "Empowerment through Technology". The idea or the vision is to contribute globally to bring IT closer to individuals, corporates, nations and societies.
In the future, we expect Aptech's training business to grow at a rate that is higher than the growth rate of the industry. Last year, Aptech's training business grew at 25 per cent, while the industry grew at an estimated rate of 22 per cent.
On the other hand, the software business of Aptech is being strengthened by the merger of Hexaware (a global software services company assisting corporations define, develop, implement and manage solutions to operate effectively in the new economy). That should give the business a wider base and larger segments to operate in. There too growth prospects are expected to be in line with the industry growth rates.
