Processing .....please wait.. 
The article has been forwarded.... 
Africa, the pasture-new of Indian IT trainers
By siliconindia
|
Saturday, 07 June 2008, 18:24 IST
Mumbai: Indian IT education companies have now started focusing on expanding their reach to Africa.
Algeria, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia and Kenya are some of the developing countries in Africa that are on the radar of home-grown learning firms such as NIIT, Aptech and Karrox.
Pramod Khera, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the Mumbai-based Aptech attributes this trend to some factors like robust demand for IT training coupled with strong growth rates in these countries and a favorable bias to the Indian education system.
Jitendra Nair, Chief Executive Officer of Karrox Technologies, is of the view that operations in Africa are at least 30 percent more profitable than India. "There are only a handful of firms that offer IT learning courses there and so margins and profitability are much higher." According to the roadmap outlined for 2011, the company sees itself being present in Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia and a few other countries.
However, G. Raghavan, President, Global Individual Learning Services of NIIT, says that it is purely the strong demand environment and not the pursuit of higher margins that is prompting companies to establish footprint in African countries. Barring South Africa, most African countries are in the first wave of adopting computer technology (for both private and public sector operations) and hence there is tremendous demand for IT skills.
"Indian IT firms keep their business model pretty simple. They tie up with local counterparts and run the business from the partners' premises; the Indian firm provides training and software support," Raghavan said.
