Soaring Success

Running successfully for more than 20 years, CADD Centre has a large network of more than 260 centres in India and abroad. S. Karaiadiselvan, Director, CADD Centre talks about the company’s success route and future plans.

Abha Garyali (AG): Tell us something about the origin, growth and success of CADD Centre? When, where and how did it originate?

S. Karaiadiselvan (SK): CADD Centre was formed as a business entity during December 1987 in Chennai.  It started as the first autodesk authorised training centre. CADD Centre commenced its courses in February 1988 and continues to focus on core competence since then. The Centre has kept CADD as the core business and continues to stick to the same for the last 21 years.

AG: How did you envision to opt for franchising as a mode of expansion?

SK: We had customers coming from various parts of the country to learn CAD from us. We felt that CADD Centre must provide world class training at Indian prices in every small town. In 1995, the top management team of CADD Centre decided to expand its network across India, thus making it easy for the professionals to join the centers. We studied different franchise models from different businesses and finally came out with a win – win franchise business model, which allows the hard working franchisees to make more money.

AG: What difference have you noticed in the performance of the company after it opted for franchising?

SK: CADD Centre as an organisation has performed better and grown bigger after franchising. The marketing cost has come down since we share the cost of activities among the centres. Lower marketing cost has lead  to better ROI and hence profitability.

AG: What qualities do you look in prospective franchisees for your company?

SK: The prospective franchisee must be an engineer or a management graduate with strong desire to be in technology business.  The prospect must have sufficient financial support system to support the growth. He must be willing to run the business with complete legal compliance.

AG: How many franchisees do you have and in which all cities?

SK: We are presently running 269 centres, over 200 towns in 13 countries

AG: What training and support do you  provide to your franchisees?

SK: We provide complete training and support to the centres. There is a free of charge training programs for every centre. All the instructors at the franchised centres are trained at regular intervals. Industry specific curriculum and courseware for the same is supplied to the franchisees.

AG: How much investment is required by an aspiring franchisee in terms of money and time?

SK: The total investment required ranges from Rs 12 lakh to Rs 30 lakh.

AG: What is the break even period for a Cadd centre franchise?

SK: The franchisees normally achieve operational break even in less than six months. In about 24 months, they recover all their initial investment.

AG:  Share with us any new venture that your company has entered into?

SK: CADD Centre has started a new network of training centres for Creative Studies by the name of Dream Zone. Dream Zone has designed to offer courses based on interior architecture, fashion designing and animation. These courses offer opportunity to a graduate to become a design professional. Currently, we have six centres across India, and we will be a network of twenty centres by June 2010.