What is hampering India's skill development program

India’s skill development mission which was launched in July 2015 and aimed to train more than 400 million people by 2022 is not meeting the targets which has been setup for it. At the time of launch everything looked right, there was a target segment, there was a need and there was a design for delivery. The projections were grand, big consulting firms worked 24X7 to make these grand plans and projections. A number of private training centres were given funds and mandate to run these programs. But still things are not looking rosy after four years. The number of people trained in first three years after launch was in the range of 20-22 million people with less than half of them landing in to some kind of job. 

The question is what is hampering this mission. Were the projections not correct? Whether the delivery mechanism, not right? Was the target segment not interested? Then comes the questions related to why placement targets are not met? How is the quality of training provided, does it really add value to trainees? Are the courses contemporary?

The projections were made by consulting agencies and they are masters of that, in the first place the target segment was not defined correctly. Every one coming out of educational system is not looking for skill training, he will not just turn up at the nearest training centre, asking for training. The program failed to identify the target segment correctly and then in creating a segment which will be interested in these trainings. 

Then comes the delivery mechanism. The program focused a lot on creating new private training centres to start with, this according to my understanding was a mistake. These training centres mushroomed everywhere, but their main focus was to get funds and then run these programs to make more money. Some big corporates joined in, but they also worked on franchise model, which suffered from same set of problems as the private training centres. Agencies both government and private failed to utilize the existing infrastructure of ITIs, Diploma/Engineering colleges, Medical colleges, Nursing colleges, Universities etc. Even good schools can do a better job than most of the private training centres.

Coming to the question of placement targets, the answer is simple. If so many of trained people were required in organised sector, companies would have hired these people and skilled them as per their requirement. If that is not happening it means the requirement is somewhere else. Question is, if placement should even be a KPI for this program. The program is run by bureaucrats and consulting agencies, and as their experience goes, they see jobs as a big opportunity. For them entrepreneurship is not an enabler. The focus of the program should have been creating more entrepreneurs, more self-working people than finding jobs.

Quality of training provided and programs being contemporary or not was another question mark. I will be a bit philosophical on this. What is contemporary in the current age? Most of the things are dynamic. Focus on development of learning skills can contribute more instead of training for a specific skill. To give credit where it’s due, course outlines for the program does highlight the need to develop learnability, but most of the training centres are ill prepared for that and only focus on specific skills.

The program needs to change its approach. Bureaucrats are running it like the way they only can, do more of same things which are not giving desired results. They are not working on analysing the situation and changing it to suite current needs. Changing the narrative might help in hiding the failures, but adopting a new narrative while accepting the failure might bring this program on track.

8 long and short years

Coming out of IIMB, I was curious how life will unfold. Life in the last 8 years brought lessons, which are not surely because of IIMB, but learning out of them was affected by my experiences at IIMB. These 8 years for me are divided in basically 2 phases, one before April 2012 and one after June 2013.

Out of IIMB, I joined corporate India on 1st of April 2010 (Convo was on 29th March) itself, such was the excitement to start working, although I could have joined late. And the excitement got crushed much faster than it came. Although I was working with a big global organization, the plant was an old plant and acquired from an Indian company and it has really not changed. I was working with the plant manager, who was also a new comer. Frankly we both struggled with how the plant was and how it functioned. As it had to happen, I was leaving at the end of 6 months to take an assignment at a different company. A Germany headquartered MNC, I am not using a global company as the prior description was more apt for the company at that. Experience was not really different but what made it interesting was frequent visits to China. Shanghai was the Asia Pacific headquarter and a gleaming city, with roads which looked like airstrips. Trip from Pudong to city center was on elevated highways which ran through the city. Visiting Shanghai, you start thinking when will an Indian city develop like this?   

Somewhere I was reading that working with people from different cultures helps you become more productive and I feel that about my stint with this company. I worked with colleagues from different countries in Europe and Asia and it did broaden my thinking and changed the way I approached problems. The high point of the stint was participation in Auto Expo 2012. Till that time I always dreamt of visiting Auto Expo and here I was in Auto Expo for the whole time. These were some of the best days, going to all the booths, discussing high end automobiles, collecting brochures, going back to hotel and back again. At time, comes a low point after a high point and this was one of such occasions. Things changed after the Auto Expo and I was leaving this job by May 2012, driven by different reasons , some which I was in control of, some which were not in my control. 

When your loved ones are close to you, it is difficult to realize their importance in life, you realize that after they are not there.

I was in Patna from May 2012 to August 2013, doing many things. Distracted, confused, out of mind, these are the words which I can correlate to, and it was driven more by the personal problems I was facing. Even this was over, I decided to go back to corporate India. Back to Pune, determined to spend atleast 5 years working.

Time flew, here I am, taking the plunge, will start working for myself from December, 2018. 5 Years 3 Months after I came back to Pune.

Innovation & Technology

I still remember the day it was sometime in early 2006, as new joiner, I was meeting Director of DRDL (Defence Research and Development Laboratory). We had a cup of coffee, discussion on my interests, why DRDO etc., at the end of it I asked him what he expects and he responded “You need to understand that in DRDO, R is small while D is capital”. It took me time to comprehend, but that also brought clarity on difference between Research and Development. To make matters simple I will say Research is more oriented towards Innovation, while Development is more oriented towards Technology. While innovation lies in the territory of Unknown, technology is in the territory of Known.

The first example which come to mind is invention of Wheel, while invention of wheel was an innovation, its first use as per archaeologists was limited to toy dogs used by Olmec children in southern Mexico 3000 years ago. Uses of wheels for transportation was a technological advancement which made life of our ancestors easier and help them in growing faster.

One can argue that innovation is the first step of technology or vice-versa unless you carry out a technological advancement an innovation is not its worth. Let us not go in to that, what should be of our interest is what role innovation and technology plays in growth and improved competitiveness of an Organization.

Many of us think that innovation and technology is responsibility of R&D function in the organization but in the new economy, innovation and technological advancement is not limited to only products, but it is similarly applicable to processes, methods, organization developments, information management etc. Just to take an example of product development (which is a mix of innovation and technology), it is not a standalone activity which can be carried by R&D department, but it is linked to market, identification of customer needs (stated and unstated), availability of communication channels, manufacturability of the product and so on. To stress upon the applicability of innovation and technology in different areas in organization we can take an example from Automotive industry. For a successful organisation like Ford which was based on Product Innovation there also exists a Toyota which emphasized and worked on Process Innovation.

The point I am trying to come here is that, most of the companies which have success and have registered the quickest growth are those that use, in their daily activity, innovation and technology advancement, and it is particularly for this reason that a significant percentage of their income is generated by new or quality/functionally improved products and services.

21^st century is the century of information in globalized & connected world. This puts pressure on maintaining uniqueness in any innovation and technological advancement, which means to stay relevant and competitive, organization need to have more frequent and more rapid innovations and technological advancements.

As innovation and technology is important for the continued success of any organization, it is imperative to discuss what can be done to promote innovative thinking and development and adaption of new technologies in our teams and organization. Some of the steps which I think can contribute are

• Provide your team a reason to connect:  When people feel connected they create their own incentive to be innovative. Make sure the team members are in the loop on strategies and challenges. Invite their inputs and involve them early on in processes and plans, this will motivate them to actively participate and will bring more ideas.
•  Stress the importance of Innovation and Technology: Make sure that all your team members are aware that their ideas are welcome. Unless they understand how better ideas and processes can keep our organization competitive, our efforts at encouraging their participation will not be successful.
• Training and time for brainstorming: Arrange training for structured problem solving techniques, schedule time for discussion on new ideas. One method can be to set aside time for brainstorming, conduct regular group workshops and have team days out. Most of the times a team brainstorming session is more effective than the sum of its parts.
• Encourage change and challenge the established way: Broadening our experiences can be a great way to bring new ideas. Short-term role swaps can bring a fresh perspective to job roles. Encourage team members to look at how other businesses carry out things, even those in other industries and sectors. Ask them how we can adapt or improve. Encourage people to keep looking anew at the way they approach their work. Ask whether they have considered alternative ways of working and what might be achieved by doing things differently.
• Be supportive and tolerate/reward failures: We all must have heard how at TATA an award category called “Dare to Try” was created, which recognises sincere and audacious attempts to create a major innovation that failed to get the desired results. This promoted the culture of risk taking and propelled the individuals and teams to try and innovate.
• Act on ideas: Innovation is special if it results in action. Put aside time and resources to develop and implement the ideas worth acting upon. Failing to do so not only means we fail to benefit from better ideas, but flow of ideas might also dry if people start feeling that the process is pointless.

To end with, successful organization are a combination of continuous innovation and technology, and to create one such place is my next goal.

Leaving IIM Bangalore

Life took a full turn in these two years at least one aspect will be similar to life before IIM, “working for a firm”. Life at IIMB had everything fun, friends, stress (lot of it) and sports (especially late night badminton sessions). I am not sure what I enjoyed most during these two years, being with friends, those competition filled badminton sessions, felling during exams that they will be over soon or the moments when exams got ever. Everything looks like a dream from first day to last day.
Friendship here was different in the sense that time spent with friends was limited to dinner, lunch, mess visits at odd hours in night and sports. This is different from undergrads in the sense that people generally spend time in their rooms. I am not sure this was effect of internet or IIM. Once I wrote about how competitive this place is and this feeling had grown with each day I spent here. Take sports, studies or whatever else everyone wants to be at top, this I think is a side effect of professionalism.
I am writing this piece after convocation so a mention of convocation is must. It was an special occasion for everyone present students and their families. Receiving the degree was such a moment that many of us don’t remember how we posed for the camera, did we smile or not, when we took it and how we came down of the stage. We all are waiting for the pics to come so that we can look in to that moment.
Between college end and convocation I travelled to Bhutan with friends. Nice place to be if you are not afraid of heights, although I am but then also I enjoyed being there. Tracking to Tiger Nest (TaktSang monastery) was pick of the trip. Amid the trip we realized that our ATM or credit cards will not work in Bhutan and then we found out that we have only enough money that we can spend one day less in Bhutan.

In Paris during first and second week of December

I was in Paris for an exchange program at HEC Paris. I was thinking what to right about. About Paris, the Louvre, La Eiffel Tower or so many famous places in Paris, but the idea which struck me was the difference in life style between an Indian and French. The question was raised by one of our fellow classmate from France. He was telling about his life and the point was that his father lived a better life than him while he and his father both are engineers and according to him this is happening since the so called emerging countries are asking their share of the pie. Although it is very obvious that with a higher growth rate the lifestyle of people in emerging countries is getting better, it is nowhere near to the lifestyle of people in developed countries. And I wondered is the development is a zero sum game and is India's or China's development will bring degrade the development of other countries. And even if it is doing so it is justified to some extent. We are growing it is because of our own capabilities and competitiveness, if we are getting jobs it is because we have the manpower and capability to do that.

The other thing which was interesting was a lecture by Indian ambassador in France. He was also trying to answer the same question and according to him this is the transition phase and things will take some time to settle. I think this is a period where world is moving towards equilibrium and people are feeling the effects of disequilibrium.

The most positive thing I think is now people from other countries are very much open about coming and working in India. Most of the students with whom we interacted showed their desire to work in India.

Coming to what we enjoyed most in Paris. We traveled to Champagne and tasted best Champagnes in the world. Boat trip on Seine was awesome and going around Eiffel tower was lifetime experience. Another experience which I enjoyed most was when I have to take trains and walk for 2.5 Kms with my luggage after I missed the taxi which came to pick me up at Airport. It was slightly scary but quite adventurous to walk in the woods to reach HEC.

After a long time

How can people become more disciplined, on their own or by control or they can’t be. Yesterday I met a person in BESCOM while working on a project. He looked very much annoyed with society .When we asked the question what BESCOM (Electricity supply company) is doing to bring down transmission and distribution losses and reduce power theft his anger just burst out. He related it to everything starting from bank failures in USA to all the problems with capitalism. He cursed everything from government, politicians to bureaucrats for problems of state electricity boards. But as a firm believer in free markets (Now) , I was almost out of sync with his ideas, I wanted to ask him a lot of questions but respecting his age,experience and passion for his thoughts, I asked very few. The problem with his ideas was that he was supporting something which spoils the tax payer’s money. Why the tax payer’s will pay for the inefficiencies of the SEBs. If SEBs are supplying power at low cost, eventually the tax payers are paying for that and then there are inefficiencies involved with tax collection and administrative expenses of SEBs. Why not directly pay that money for power. Then the question comes what about people who can’t pay high prices for electricity. First there is a need to find out who are people who can’t pay and then we need to target the subsidies to them. Why give free power to every farmer which causes over consumption, instead charge the marginal cost and use that for other development programs and other infrastructure development programs which will help in development of society. According to the person in BESCOM the conductor losses due to poor wiring is very high and government need to work on that , again who will pay for that tax payers, but why can’t SEBs do that by making profits and utilizing that fund instead of going through the tax mechanism. His argument was proper metering will not stop power theft; the question is why it can’t, how private companies are able to do it while SEB’s are not. Is it due to corruption of employees or due to less disciplined society? I think the technology is advanced enough to stop these thefts if it is used properly. My overall argument is no one should try to justify something which has some inherent problems, he was correct in pointing out the problems, but I differ with solutions he was suggesting.

Last blog of 4th term

Terms come terms go, we learn something , we don't learn many things. The question is how these learnings affect the way you think. Sometimes I feel they affect, during final year of B.Tech a prof told start looking at things like an engineer and I started trying and really it changed my view of machines. Same is now, now I also look at billboards on roads side. Enough is enough what am I writing.

I was reading articles of WSJ , one article was about Indian entrepreneurs, it talked about Dhirubhai and Sunil Mittal, how they built their umpires from scratch and how they fought the system and overcame all the hurdles, another story was about Muslim girls in Kolkata learning boxing to make a career out of it. I wanted to draw some conclusion from this, if life gives everyone a fair chance, if these girls have options will they still go for boxing or they will look for options which can yield better results. How they are forced to choose boxing as a career when they know that only one or two will become successful.

We went to IIMC for the sports meet and won the event there, every time I go to Kolkata I feel like this city will never change, it is the same for last 4 years, same Trams , no change in the shops, same old Taxis. Met a college friend after long time, it was nice. Saw a movie named " Love Aaj Kal", I don't know what the directors think about the viewer. If viewers will digest any rubbish talk. As told by one of the friends "nice movie if it is on mute".

This post is dedicated to Mr. Tyagi for his writing skills