Grow Talent corporate varsity likely by June

In an attempt to help corporates reduce the high attrition rate and executives enhance their capabilities and competencies, the Gurgaon-based Grow Talent Company Ltd has decided to set up a corporate university.

According to a top Grow Talent official, the first batch will start in June 2006. The corporate university will offer products like open enrolment programmes, customised corporate education, training events management and research-based learning events and reports.

"Our aim is to build cost-effective corporate universities, which are 'a process' rather than 'a place'," said Shyam Viswanathan, chief executive (corporate education) of Grow Talent.

According to him, Grow Talent would offer companies with a large number of employees to open the corporate university campus at their own establishments. Companies with around 500-600 employees can join the courses on the Grow Talent campus.

"Learning programmes can be delivered at cost-effective locations depending on the logistics and the delivery methodologies to be used, in-house corporate universities and a shared corporate university platform," he said.

"Most organisations are aware that the key to competitive advantage is giving employees greater access to update and upgrade their knowledge," he said.

Grow Talent, the second largest domestic strategic human resources consulting firm, was in talks with several corporates for the project, he added. Terming the concept of a corporate university a unique one and the need of the hour, Viswanathan said, "but for the small human resources development companies, there are hardly any institutions to tackle the larger issues, also stemming from the globalisation and integration of Indian companies in the global economy."

The university would ensure that every learning solution offered was mapped rigorously to the specific need of the organisation and was sharply focused on organisational objectives, he said.

The company, which claims to have done a Rs-20 crore business in the first nine months of 2005-06, hopes to double the business in 2006-07.

In the organised sector, human resources consulting, and capabilities and competencies training each account for Rs 150 crore. "There is huge potential in the unorganised sector and we want to tap that market," he said.

With the expansion of the economy, the training market was set to grow at a rate of 10 per cent and human resources consulting by 5-6 per cent in the next few years.

Grow Talent, which has a tie-up with the US-based Right Management, helps in improving the working environment, right-sizing of a company, retraining and redeployment of surplus staff, capability development and also helps corporates develop right competencies to compete in the global market.

On the response from corporates, he said the opening up of the economy had forced corporates to rethink their strategies and enter into long-term partnerships with retraining institutions to develop corporate solutions as per their specific requirements. Grow Talent had the expertise to create several strong differentiators in this area.

"Starting with competence assessment and thus determining training needs; developing powerful instructional design; a faculty portfolio that brings 'best in class' experts from around the world; action learning; coaching and a robust model for measuring the impact of training are some of the unique elements of Grow Talent," Viswanathan said.