UK institute plans to enroll more students in Kerala

With the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry graduating to a phase where professionals with more analytical skills have become the need of the hour, the UK-headquartered Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) is looking to play its role in India by adding more students and management professionals to various courses it offers.

Speaking to Business Standard in Thiruvananthapuram, Swati Ghangurde, chief representative at the CIMA India Liaison Office, said that the BPO scene is currently seeing a stream of fresh jobs that need additional analytical skills.

"It is here CIMA feels the need to impart higher standards of qualification and support to finance professionals," she added.

Pointing out that CIMA expects more online enrollments from Kerala this year, Ghangurde said the institute is currently looking at adding to its number of existing students from Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.

"CIMA currently operates from eight locations in India, and of them three are in the south, one each at Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. These centres in the south will have an added focus on students from Kerala as most of them register for their course from these metro centres," she added.

Elaborating on the courses offered, Ghangurde said CIMA has a total business focus. This, in turn, has helped CIMA deliver a new professional qualification with double the focus of any competitor on business management and strategic management accounting.

With courses like Professional Qualification, Certificate in Business Accounting and Advanced Diploma in Management Accounting being offered, graduates from the institute are in demand at many forward-looking business establishments.

She added the USP of the courses is case study-oriented material made available to the students. With a fee of around Rs 1 lakh and a flexible course period of around 2 to 2 1/2 years, the courses are convenient for the professionals and students who enroll, Ghangurde added.

More and more companies world-wide are now looking at professionals coming out of CIMA and are even enrolling their staffers for CIMA programmes. Revealing that Genpact, the multi-national BPO company, has chosen CIMA as the professional accountancy qualification they are making available to eligible staff, she said the global firm has begun helping its employees globally pursue a CIMA course. More business houses are now looking at the same route, she added.