40% of IT workforce requires re-skilling in the coming five years: Vinay Pradhan

In the current age of layoffs across different sectors reskilling employees is becoming the need of the hour for India Inc to optimally utilize the talent. According to NASSCOM, the IT industry body, up to 40% of the individuals of the estimated 40 million workforces requires re-skilling in the coming 5 years. Hence, catering need of the skilling, Skillsoft, the global leader in eLearning, has devised comprehensive solutions to meet end to end learning needs of organizations. Thus, talking about its content portfolio which includes different modules, courses, videos and book options in particular and skilling industry as a whole, Vinay Pradhan, Country Manager, Skillsoft spoke to Educationbiz.com.

What are the learning modules and courses that you have devised for Indian corporate professionals?
Skillsoft specializes across four key product lines: business and leadership skills, IT skills and certification, digital skills and compliance. Our content portfolio includes over 120,000 different learning modules, comprising of 7,000 courses, 65,000 videos, and 46,000 book options. Skillsoft enables collaboration across the globe in 160 countries and 29 languages.

What is your specialization across different product lines?
Skillsoft offers comprehensive solutions to meet end to end learning needs of organizations. We have introduced micro-learning with three to five-minute videos for those with paucity of time while the system also has e-books and audio books for those who require content in depth. The users can save their own playlists, access whatever content they need, whenever they wish, with one click. So, if even they just have three to four minutes in a day, they can learn something new – even on the go.

On our platform learners can track their goals, launch recommended and popular content, and follow designated learning paths. Other comprehensive features include customized curated channels that adapt to the learners’ specific needs. These channels are an easy way for learners to find all resources available on a specific topic.

Please tell us about content delivery and learning platform ‘Percipio’?
In line with evolving needs, and taking e-learning a step ahead, Skillsoft recently launched Percipio, a cloud-based, state-of-the-art content delivery and learning platform. It is designed to provide a perfect, consumer-led experience that makes the learner feel engaged and inspired.

How eLearning courses are aiding employees to up-skill?
The last two decades or so have positioned eLearning as a revolution in modern learning. However, today, traditional eLearning has rapidly evolved into ‘digital learning’ that leverages tools and delivery modes that are capable of addressing the needs and pressures of modern-day professionals. Digital learning offers far more options to suit the personalized learning needs of every individual while serving the underlying objectives of learning on-demand. It lets the individuals decide the time, place, path and pace at which they will learn.

So far how many professionals have you skilled in India?
In India, Skillsoft has customers ranging from very large organizations with lakhs of employees to smaller organizations with few hundreds. We have more than 200 customers in the country with lakhs of employees using our offering to get skilled on a continuous basis.

In addition to the required technical or hard skills that corporate professionals need to land up at a job or do the job brilliantly, they should also develop their soft skills in order to get the most from their job. Also in an increasingly competitive landscape IT professionals require interpersonal skills.

In the case of slumping IT sector in India, how can up-skilling professionals averse the cloud of layoffs?
According to NASSCOM, the IT industry body, up to 40% of the individuals of the estimated 40 million workforces requires reskilling over the coming 5 years if the sector wants to keep pace with the changing face and automation of the industry.

Change is happening at an unprecedented scale and the lifecycle of skills is shorter than ever. Workforce reskilling is an urgent and massive imperative across sectors. By up skilling, professionals can stay up to date with the latest developments in their industry as change is happening at a rapid pace and is inevitable.

What is your global learning that you are applying in the Indian market?
Skillsoft works with almost 65 percent of the Fortune 500 companies and thousands of SMB companies around the world across all industries. Our team possesses great understanding and experience of how effective learning strategies get executed from very large to smaller enterprises. We bring lot of this expertise to the Indian market and provide best of the breed content and solutions to Indian organizations.

India is one of the fastest growing markets for us and we are experiencing double digit growth here.

What are the current trends in universal skill market and where does India stands?
Globally, the skills that are in demand include digital skills, soft skills - including Leadership skills – technical and domain skills. With its large millennial population, India is at the forefront of supplying resources skilled in these areas.

How fast skilling through eLearning is catching up in India and what could be the future?
A couple of years ago, 90 percent of our clients used to be from the IT sector and now, they contribute to around 70 percent of the clientele. This does not mean that the number of IT companies has reduced. Other sectors such as retail, hospitality and automobile are opening up to eLearning. India has the advantage of the demographic dividend which can be cultivated to build a skilled workforce in the near future. eLearning is best suited to deliver on this objective.

How big is the Indian eLearning market?
India has become the largest market for eLearning after the US. Research shows that India’s e-learning sector is growing at a compounded annual rate of 17.4 percent between 2013 and 2018, twice as fast as the global average. By 2022, the country faces a potential shortage of 250 million skilled workers. According to the Ken research, the India corporate training market will record revenue of INR 32 billion by FY’2020 due to more players entering the market and rising adoption of training and development programs in India Inc.

The growth of this sector has been majorly driven by governmental thrust towards skill development initiatives and growing awareness among MSMEs towards business enabling training modules.