Stanchart BPO arm creates learning academy

To train students in risk awareness and mitigation

Scope International, the shared services arm of Standard Chartered Group (SCB), has set up a Global Academy for Learning to train young aspiring entrants in risk awareness and mitigation before they are assigned to handle financial services operations.

Sreeram Iyer, group head (global shared services centre) and head (technology & operations India), said the group had diluted training in the recent past due to automation and several other processes and wanted to get back to the training model of public sector banks.

He said the company decided to invest more on risk management in banking operations and had spent over $1 million a year on training.

The academy would ensure de-risking the operational risk environment in the shared services centre, he said.

He added that the company wanted to set standards on equipping the people with right skills for the industry while protecting Standard Chartered Bank's performance.

He said that the model could go to the rest of the SCB if proved sustainable. The curriculum focuses on risk management and ranges across domain, process and system and optimises all medium of learning - classroom, e-learning and experiential.

Iyer said Scope would be adding another 5,000 sq ft facility for training and hire several hundred people in 2006. He also said that Scope would look at expanding its scope of operations beyond IT and BPO. "Our headquarters would pick up those services and offer it to other companies," he added.

C Chandramouli, who awarded the certificates to about 30 students undergone training in the Academy, said IT industry had to give more thrust on people as it was entrusted with valuables resources, with fiercely protected secrets.

Chandramouli said that Scope's academy model should be replicated across the industry and educational institutions. He called for the involvement of industry bodies like CII and Nasscom to do this process.

He also said the government was looking at deriving some of the best HR practices from industry for government staff to make the service delivery better.

Taiwanese firms to set up units in Chennai

More than two Taiwan-based hardware manufacturers have finalised their investment plans to set up their manufacturing units near Chennai, according to Chandramouli.

The companies, which would bring their vendors along with them, will soon announce their investment plans, he said. Taiwanese hardware manufacturers were seeing India as a good alternative location to diversify their business.

He said that Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry, and IT development, had already opened a representative office in Chennai.