Tholons ventures into education sector

Tholons, a leading full-service strategic advisory firm for global outsourcing and research, has ventured into education.

After five years into advising offshore firms, Tholon is now ready with its new business strategy: The education venture has already got off the ground in India and plans for launching institutions in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Latin America, Vietnam and China have been finalised.

Tholons Institute promises to be the global school for management and technical education. The venture was the result of its findings while delivering its advisory services: The need for an industry-ready skilled workforce.

In 2011, the education stream in India is expected to generate a revenue of Rs 10 crore. Once the delivery goes global – in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and a host of Latin American countries like Argentina and Chile – the education revenue could touch Rs 40 crore in a year. The global component will be Rs 25 crore and the Indian market share Rs 15 crore, said Avinash Vashistha, chairman and CEO, Tholons.

Vashistha, who spent many years in Nortel pioneering the idea of offshoring, founded neoIT and then moved on with his team to set up Tholons.

The education venture will initially focus on skill development. Capsules will be offered for professional certification in industry-specific skills. Training will also be offered to enable firms to outsource the training of new recruits. The training sessions are expected to take off in November in Bangalore with a class of 50 students from global Fortune 100 companies.

The first campus has been set up in Jaipur — Tholons Global Institute. The centre will use the existing infrastructure of an institution. It is an approved learning centre for the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).

Tholons has proactively initiated the exercise by “designing one-year diploma courses for IGNOU – two in outsourcing and three in research analytics – which it has thereafter approved,” said Vashistha. “We are the only people in India offering these courses right now.” After appearing for the examination the first batch of students will get its diplomas in 2012.”

Tholons will also be offering three-month certification capsules in Bangalore and Delhi, which one can opt for after finishing school or undergraduate studies. Courses will be offered in global outsourcing, market research, outsourcing of procurement, financial research and analytics, market research and analytics and business research and analytics. Right now there are 40 students in Bangalore and Delhi offering a course in business analytics.

The third stream will be to offer courses that will lead upto a post graduate diploma. These courses are expected to be approved by IGNOU. The long-term aim is to offer bachelors and masters degrees in business administration. The process of securing regulatory approval for this is on.

Along with education, Tholons will continue to offer its core advisory services — where and how to outsource services. It also undertakes competitiveness analysis by researching markets and opportunities.

While finding the best locations for its clients, Tholons has also been advising countries on their growth strategy for hosting offshoring services — identifying areas and finding talent.

The annual run rate in advisory services is currently $ 10 million, with a global staff of 80. The two years of global slowdown affected Tholons too, causing it to postpone raising a PE fund.

Currently it has two small clients with equity exposure, where its outsourcing advisory services are offered with a risk-reward component. If the client gains by offshoring then Tholons, which helped it do so, gets to keep a part of the gains.