Satyam top-of-the-heap at ASTD BEST awards

Hyderabad-based global consulting and information technology (IT) services company, Satyam Computer Services, has been ranked No. 1 in the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD)'s annual BEST awards programme for 2007. This also makes Satyam the first non-US organisation and the first in Asia to make it to the number one rank at ASTD BEST.

Satyam led the league of 42 organisations from India, South Africa, and the United States to receive the BEST award this year. Besides Satyam, three other Indian companies including TCS, Wipro, Infosys and ICICI Bank have found place in the top half of the list. Through an online application, the 2007 BEST Awards received entries from 103 organisations in eight countries.

"The BEST awards recognise organisations that demonstrate enterprise-wide success through employee learning and development. This year's winners set the standard of excellence for exceptional learning practices and demonstrate that a skilled workforce is vital to achieving results. Last year, the average spend of the BEST award winners on payroll training was 2.6% (approximately $1,672 on each employee), while it was 3% this year," Jennifer Homer, VP (external relations), ASTD, told mediapersons via a conference call on Friday.

ASTD is the world's largest association dedicated to workplace learning. Its members come from more than 100 countries and connect locally in 140 US chapters and 24 global networks.

"We have made huge investments in our learning centre and school of leadership and our efforts paid dividends with this award... We will become a 50,000-employee-strong organisation this year, from the present 43,000, B Ramalinga Raju, founder-chairman of Satyam said.

According to Ed Cohen, senior VP (leadership development), Satyam, the company has a virtualised learning eco-system that maximised the latest technologies to meet the needs of the rapidly growing organisation. Satyam learning initiatives are driven by two entities -- the Satyam School of Leadership (SSL) and the Satyam Learning Centre (SLC).