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Feature /Technology MAGAZINE | SEP 05, 2009

Santanu Bhattacharjee, Technable SolutionsThe Mission: To guide students towards suitable careers and enhance their job skills.The Benefits: Students know which jobs they have the aptitude for. Thousands have found suitable jobs.

Making CareersSantanu Bhattacharjee is helping thousands of students in West Bengal and the North East findthe right job.

SUDIPTO DEY ON SANTANU BHATTACHARJEE

When he was in college, Subrata Das would wonder what career to pursue. By the time hehad graduated in English Honours, he still wasnt sure. Like most of his classmates, Das beganappearing for the various exams that would land him a secure government job. Then, an ad ina local newspaper caught his eye. Kolkata-based Technable Solutions was organising anaptitude, competence and employability test (ACET) under a programme run by the WestBengal governments Department of Information Technology.

The three-hour test assessed Das skills in three areas: analysis,listening comprehension and English communication. Theresults showed he needed to improve his communication skills,conversational English and soft skills. So, he attended a

Technable training programme to brush up. At the end of it mostof his batchmates got jobs in IT/BPO, retail and insurancecompanies. Das himself was offered a job as a trainer inTechnable. Like him, nearly 25,000 students (many areundergraduates) from West Bengals districts have found theiraptitude for various jobs over the last four years through ACET.Of them 5,000 opted for further training.

Santanu Bhattacharjee, founder-Director of Technable, measures the programmes successwith its ability to improve candidates skills. Of the 5,000-odd who underwent training, 4,000were placed in the IT/ITeS, telecom, retail and insurance industries, among others. Thats astrike rate of 80%. And a reassuring one for potential traineesthe fee for a six-month course isRs 11,000. Most students come from families with a monthly income of Rs 10,000-15,000.

Over 80% of those placed come from the vernacular medium, with 30% being women. Thestarting salaries range anywhere between Rs 3,500 and Rs 9,000 per month.

However, what surprises Technables trainers is that barely 2% of those who have taken theACET till date have scored an A (the grade gives them a job-ready tag). The vast majority havebeen found below par in terms of employability and require training.

On their part, educational institutions are beginning to acknowledge the gap between theknowledge and skill sets they impart and the actual needs of industry. More than a dozen under-graduate colleges in West Bengal have approached Technable to manage their careerdevelopment and placement cells.

Expansion and Break-Even

Starting off with one centre in Kolkata, Technable now has 20 centres across West Bengal andthe North East. In 2007, Bhattacharjee decided to take the franchisee route to spreadTechnables reach. While his current focus remains on east India, a pan-India spread is plannedfor the latter part of 2010.

In the last three years revenues have grown from Rs 8 lakh (FY07) to Rs 1.5 crore (FY09). Thecompany broke even in FY08, only its second full year of operations.

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Technablesrevenue touched

Rs 1.5 crore inFY09. It broke evenin FY08, which wasonly its secondyear of operations.

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We got into education and training because of the social impact, says Bhattacharjee, who hasalready invested Rs 50 lakh of his personal wealth into the venture. He is a lso in talks withventure capitalists for an infusion of about Rs 3 crore in exchange for a stake inthe company.

Bhattacharjee, 49, is no stranger to the corporate world. He spent 22 years in the IT andtelecom industries, both in the US and India. His CV includes names like Nortel Networks andMCI Worldcom. The man isnt new to the world of start-ups either, having launched four techstart-ups during his 18-year stint in Texas.

He completed his Masters in computer science in the US in the 1980s. Prior to that he got adegree in mechanical engineering from the National Institute of Technology in Rourkela, Orissa.

I had decided early on that if I was to re-locate to India it would be during my productive yearsand not when Im retired. Bhattacharjee moved back to India in 2003. But most of his friendswere surprised by his choice of cityKolkata. He concedes that it would have been easier tonurture a tech-start up in Bangalore or Gurgaon. At the time, West Bengal was waking up to aneconomic revival and there was degree of restlessness in the socio-political situation. Thechaos provided opportunities says Bhattacharjee.

Working Within The System

Instead of re-inventing the wheel while setting up a delivery infrastructure, Bhattacharjeeintegrated his strategies with government policies. For instance, the government has appointedTechnable its nodal agency for a number of IT/ITeS training programmes. The idea was tokeep cost of delivery minimum, and that would not have been possible if I were to re-create theinfrastructure, he says.

The biggest challenge he faces is in finding quality trainers. Those from Kolkata are not willingto move to small towns. Thats where Bhattacharjees background in telecom and networking iscoming in handy. He is adopting e-learning techniques so that students can get top-qualityteaching without a teacher being physically present.

He also recognises the need to keep training programmes tailored to the changing dynamics ofthe industrial world. The global downturn has taken some of the sheen off the IT/ITES sectorover the last year. Job openings in the BPO industry have come down in recent months, saysBhattacharjee. But there is huge demand in technology, marketing and customer-support jobsrelated to the domestic telecom sector.

His next objective is to find jobs for 40,000 people in the next four yearsa ten-fold increasefrom 2008. It is a debt I owe the country. People like us have benefited hugely from thesubsidised higher education system financed by taxpayers, he explains. We can only pay backsociety by helping create jobs.

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