Aptech Training and Education plans to focus on its international business to attain global market leadership. As part of this, the company is organising a 'World Business Partners' meet in the first week of December. The meet is expected to throw open an opportunity for its global partners to interact with their Indian counterparts.
The training and education business is conducted through a franchisee model that provides both retail and corporate training across the globe. On the international retail business front, the strategy is to enter dense markets where there is a gap between learned individuals and the IT industry demands.
"Currently, we have presence in 44 countries with 225 centres for our retail education business. We have identified six regions -- China, South Asia, Southern Africa, Western Africa, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe -- as our main focus areas. We also plan to gain leadership in South Africa, Egypt, Indonesia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Korea, in 2002. We already have a considerable presence in China, Russia and Latin America. There are already 53 centres in China and we are expanding it to 75 centres by this year-end here," Pramod Khera, CEO, training and education- Aptech, said.
The next thrust area is corporate training. The corporate training market is estimated at Rs 150-200 crore in the country. Aptech has a 10 per cent market share and is looking at increasing this substantially. The vision is to be a training partner of Fortune 500 companies in select countries. The company is working towards an organised structure for its businesses which has so far been largely dominated by the unorganised players.
Khera said: "Internationally, the model being largely followed is that of onsite training, wherein you have a centralised pool of trainers. We are looking at following this model. As per this, you have your own trainers and also empanelled trainers. Our goal is to have 2000 empanelled trainers by mid next year."
The international business contributes close to 15 per cent to the overall revenues of Aptech's training and education business. For the quarter ended September 30, 2001, its global revenues from training and education were to the tune of Rs 71.41 crore compared with Rs 135.59 crore posted last year during the same period, down by 47 per cent.
