‘‘The best form of export for India is knowledge itself’’

Several global organizations like Accenture, Pfizer, Sony, Domino’s Pizza, PwC, Oracle, Nokia and Proctor and Gamble have standardised on Centra for the delivery of live eLearning. Centra is a leading company in eLearning and Internet business collaboration. In an interview with Priya Srinivasan, Centra chief learning technology officer Harvi Singh spells out his views on the future of eLearning and the role India can play in this business. Excerpts:

Why is eLearning being talked of as the next big wave as far as Internet based businesses go?

The reason why more and more people are into eLearning is because the world is going through a phase of globalisation and success of organisations will depend on how quickly knowledge workers are able to learn and transmit skills. We are all increasingly adopting business models which are knowledge intensive and the transfer of knowledge physically just doesn’t fit the scheme of things anymore. The Internet as a pipeline for business and for the free flow of knowledge has become vital, which is why eLearning has such huge potential.

What sort of role do you see for India in the eLearning business?

To begin with, India provides IT services for the world. So it’s only logical that Indian IT companies learn rapid knowledge transfer mechanisms with respect to their own products and services. More broadly, the best form of export for India is knowledge itself. There is a huge base of communicators and teachers here, to create any kind of content. Many boutique outfits offering high quality production have sprung up in India to cater to the eLearning market worldwide and the price differential here as compared to companies overseas is up to 50 per cent sometimes.

What sort of potential does Centra see in the Indian market? What are your plans for India?

From the potential standpoint, we are sitting on a large one. There are large MNCs in sectors like pharma and IT here and these are prime targets for applying the Centra type architecture. For example a financial institution with new services will have to train its sales staff across the world and the fastest way to reach them is online. The traditional way would have been to send out instructors, but now companies can use Centra type solutions for instantaneous knowledge transfer.

You already have a reseller partnership with Gurukulonline in India. Do you plan any more?

Right now, the approach to sell in India is through partners. Partners like Gurukul offer value-added services like hosting and integration. For the moment, we have no plans of going in for more partners. We feel though that there is something real in terms of the business opportunity for eLearning in India but it calls for a mindset change.

Do you see a role for Indian companies beyond the content and services segment of the eLearning business? More specifically, is Centra planning to tap the technology skills here in any way?

It’s too premature to talk about this, but we may consider an R&D centre here in the future. We have contemplated this and are keeping our options open. Currently, we have two R&D centres, one in Boston and the other in North Carolina. The reason we are optimistic about India is because Indian companies have already got started on content development and I don’t see that in many other countries.