After going through a long slump for almost four years, the IT training market has finally picked up and is seeing good growth in the past two years. New Horizons, one the world's largest IT training companies, with offices in nearly 60 countries including India, is betting big on the market that is scaling newer heights. Ajay Kumar Sharma, president and CEO, New Horizons India Ltd., speaks to Rashmi Shrikant of CIOL on the company's plans and initiatives in the IT education space.

CIOL: You have been in the Indian IT Training industry since 2002. How has been the journey so far? Where do you position yourself in the market?

Ajay Kumar Sharma: At the turn of the century, the IT training industry was cited as an emerging opportunity and the vertical was growing at approximately 35 percent per year. However, between 2001 through 2005 the growth rate of this industry slowed down considerably and most companies in this space had to bear losses.

Having gone downhill for almost four years, the IT training market has finally picked up again and is seeing good growth in the past two years. In 2006-07, the IT training industry was worth Rs 2,135 crore, a 46 percent increase from 2005-06 which saw a total turnover of Rs 1,453 crore, a 14 percent growth over the previous year.

New Horizons entered the Indian IT training market in 2002 and this was the time that the industry was at its maximum slump. However, very soon New Horizons become synonymous with high end, high quality value based training and a preferred name in corporate training segment. Last couple of years has been very fruitful and eventful as the company has been registering a 100 percent growth y-o-y while expanding the customer base, employee base, the product range and expansion of distribution channel. As the market starts to scale new heights, we are in an ideal position to make the most of it.

CIOL: How critical is the Indian market for you as compared to your global operations?

AKS: India and China are very critical to global growth plans of New Horizons, but India is far ahead in terms of need for highly skilled technical manpower being the back office of the world and New Horizons is concentrating on Indian market for maximizing growth.

Indian as well as foreign companies are investing in technical and training support to give a boost to their IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) industry in India. In fact, more and more companies are ensuring that their employees regularly undergo IT training session to upgrade their skills as well as motivate them move up the value change.