The Hindu Business Line : Another door opens

Want to train your employees in basic information technology (IT) practices? Don’t go looking for a “computer training” academy. Contact your software development vendor. Chances are he would be willing to train your employees the way he trains his — using similar content and delivery mechanisms.

IT companies are increasingly channelling their domain knowledge and on-the-job skills into creating training programmes for their clients. These programmes range from teaching clients how to use a computer, briefing them about changes in their business, addressing regulatory and compliance issues at all employee levels to training them in handling complex niche applications.

Companies such as Patni Computer Systems also offer behavioural training and leadership grooming programmes, besides content documentation. Patni recently set up a dedicated unit to offer these services to clients.

About five years ago, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) set up a small team to address training and development (T&D). Leveraging its expertise in the banking, financial services and insurance domain, it trained clients in areas such as Sarbanes Oxley Act (US Federal Law) and Clause 49 (prescribed by SEBI). The company is now looking at specialising in sectors such as government and defence that face frequent regulatory and compliance issues, thus requiring constant training programmes.

But why does a software developer have to offer training services to clients? “One needs to explain technology and theory changes to clients. Who better to offer this training than an IT developer who implements such change for clients?” asks S. Venkatramani, Vice-President and Head, India Geography, TCS. As IT and business domains merge, all software developers will have to cater to clients’ training needs, he says.

For Fujitsu Consulting India, offering these services to clients is a step closer to achieving “customer delight”, says Jitendra Tanna, Vice-President of the company. For the last two years, through a separate team of employees, Fujitsu has been offering documentation support for technologies that include SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel and Business Intelligence (BI).

It also develops software product documentation such as user, admin, installation, operations manuals, online help, business process procedures, system training material and e-Learning solutions.

When a former client approached Impetus Technologies to document an application installed by a third-party vendor, Impetus took on the job and delivered. Since then T&D has featured prominently among the company’s offerings. “These value -added offerings have helped us become a complete product engineering and service provider and win more projects,” says Vineet Tyagi, Associate Director of Engineering, Impetus Technologies.

Headway into new markets

For most IT companies, T&D services are part of larger software development deals. Revenues from standalone T&D services are insignificant, companies say without sharing figures. But these non-core services have helped companies bag competitive deals; even make headway into new markets.

Sundaram Infotech Solutions Ltd (SISL) entered Jordan and Saudi Arabia through its ERP training programme. This subsequently led to software development and implementation deals. “Two months after entering Jordan, we bagged a repeat deal. ERP training has also given us entry in other geographies such as Europe and Australia,” says J. Raghunathan, Vice-President-Marketing, SISL. The company has also seen interest from clients in West Asia for ERP training services.

According to Sudeep Verma, Assistant Vice-President, ERP Line of Business, Birlasoft (India) Ltd, offering T&D services to clients improves customer confidence, resulting in greater business coming into the company. He shares the case of a Fortune 100 insurance company for whom Birlasoft created an ERP training program that included best practices pertaining to the customer’s requirement. Following this offering, the client roped in Birlasoft for its other requirements. “Though revenues from training have not been a big contributor to our other service offerings, we intend to grow this (line of business), especially in some process training areas such as ITIL and Sarbanes Oxley,” says Verma.

Another example is that of Fujitsu India, where the company’s focus on providing technical documentation led to getting more meaningful work from existing clients. A US-based housing solutions company wanted Fujitsu to develop design documents (functional, logical, physical and deployment) for its various applications related to office automation and account receivable systems. The documentation team at Fujitsu did reviews focusing on structuring, formatting, editing and proofreading technical documents. Post this contract, the team was soon called upon by a German pharmaceutical giant for a similar onsite engagement.

For TCS, the T&D offering has made a significant difference to the quality of the deals it bags. “People today call us to implement end-to-end programmes such as business process re-engineering and transformation (change management programmes) only because they know of our training initiatives,” says Venkatramani.

A case in point is TCS’ work for the Ministry of Company Affairs, involving digitisation of the Ministry’s information assets. Subsequently, TCS was approached to carry out business process re-engineering and transformation services for the Ministry. Soon it also designed solutions and managed the service delivery to consumers.

neglect of new technology

By providing T&D services, Patni has been able to extend its presence in post-deployment activities such as rollouts and awareness drives, according to Sunil Kuwalekar, Senior Vice-President, Global Sourcing and Operations Management, Patni. He believes that lack of knowledge (domain and technology) among end users can lead to non-usage of new technology. To prevent this, IT companies must widen their offerings in the training domain.

As organisations with large IT spends begin to manage their investments tightly, there is a need to develop and deliver appropriate training content. Recognising this, TCS is planning to ramp up its T&D offerings. “The global market for T&D is about $5 billion, most of which is expected to come from content creation. India is likely to have the lion’s share of the content creation pie,” says Venkatramani.

At present, TCS offers T&D as a horizontal offering across all verticals. But it may decide to make this a vertical as clients are coming up with specific queries and generic training in areas such as ERP and CRM, he says.

IBS Software Services, a software solutions provider to the global travel, transportation and logistics (TTL) industry, is planning to develop domain specific e-learning solutions. The company currently offers software development, business and technology consulting, turnkey solutions, application maintenance and customer support services.

“Over the next few quarters, e-learning should easily contribute at least 20 per cent to our services revenues,” says Manoj Balraj, General Manager, Software Services Line of Business, IBS, without disclosing figures.

archana@thehindu.co.in