CMC to focus on expanding Education & Training segment in FY15

Company to up budget allocation for R&D by 15% for FY15

CMC Ltd, subsidiary of India’s largest IT company Tata Consultancy Services, is looking to expand its Education and Training business segment in FY15 by entering the vocational training market domestically as well as internationally.

“There are special initiatives going on in the company to focus and grow our foot print in this segment to make it a broader base of knowledge management,” managing director and chief executive officer R. Ramanan told Business Standard.

The company’s Education and Training segment is the smallest revenue generator of the four strategic business units it has. In the quarter ended March, this segment reported consolidated revenues worth Rs 13.77 crore compared with Rs 77.44 crore from IT enabled services and the highest of Rs 398 crore from the systems integration segment. The customer services segment churned Rs 119.82 crore in the period under review.

“We have started a pilot project in vocational training in construction management and retail management segment in Hyderabad and Pune and will be launching pilots projects in this quarter in Delhi and Mumbai,” said Ramanan.

Regarding increased spending on this business segment for FY15, Ramanan said, “we have increased spending for this segment but not very significant as of now. It is too early to talk about total spending on this segment since it is still a pilot project. Based on the results of the pilot project, which will come in next 6-12 months, we will have a clearer idea.”

CMC also plans to spend more on research and development in the current financial year and will keep a budget 15% higher from last year, said Ramanan.

As part of its vision to be among the top 20 global companies by 2020 through its CMC 3.0 initiative, Ramanan said the company has laid a strategy to move towards its goal in the current year. The company intends to provide services to advanced markets and technology and solutions for the emerging markets.

“The emerging economies like Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa do not have systems integration at all and so we have great business opportunity there to tap these markets to create solutions from ground-up,” he said. “For the advanced countries, we have the skill and domain knowledge where we become attractive for them to position for outsourcing or automation services or SMAC integration,” he said.