Learning Times

Faced with difficult conditions in both its training and software services businesses, SSI is remoulding its business strategy

The announcement by SSI Limited, the Rs 400 crore software training and services company, to sell its owned centres to franchisees does not seem to have been taken very kindly by the markets.

Although the franchisee model is the most preferred approach globally and has proved quite successful for industry leaders like NIIT and Aptech, the move is surprising for a company that was set up only ten years ago and took seven years to open its first franchisee software training centre.

This apart, there are several questions raised about the need for selling the centres at a time when the entire IT training industry is going through a rough patch. Especially since the company already has over Rs 240 crore of idle cash on its books.

No wonder, within a month of the announcement in May this year, the scrip lost about 50 per cent of its market capitalisation. By the end of June 2001, the share price had dropped steeply from Rs 550 levels to below Rs 250.

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