Article written on TechPlus Education Technology.
Santosh Joshi, CEO, BankEdge in an exclusive interaction with Education Technology- a community under CXO TV.news explains the differentiation of BankEdge model to other training modules along with its future plans to diversify beyond BFSI programs
What is the uniqueness of the recruitment model that BankEdge offers?
Typically when it comes to a bank job, these are associated with banking examination, preparation, aptitude test. That is the kind of awareness that today’s graduates are having among them as far as banking job is concerned. How BankEdge business model is different from this traditional method is that we recruit young graduates from the open market and we then put them into rigorous training of 6 months. Here we are training them in retail branch banking, backend operations, various banking processes, third party products, core banking software, sales skills and whatever it takes them to become a banker. We get them an entry level job in various private sector banks. This is an alternate option to an MBA or a PGDM which are a little costly and also time consuming. This is a quick dose of training of 3-6 months of what we do to the students and then we help them in getting placement in private sector banks and leading financial institutions across India.
Today we are working with more than 35 institutions that include private banks and even NBFCs. Axis Bank is our most premium client followed by HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, YES Bank, IndusInd Bank on the banking side. We also do business with couple of NBFCs like Muthoot Finance, IIFL.
How do you ensure placement? What sort of organizations have you placed till date?
In 2014, when we started the one thing that was there in our mind was that graduates are going for skill development and seeking a good opportunity in the banking sector. Our responsibility was to create an opportunity for this young graduate as far as the interviews are concerned in private banks or NBFCs. And the focus was always on placements. We strengthen our placements first and then we started marketing our programs. So far in the last 5 years, BankEdge has trained around 25000 odd graduates and also placed around 15000 people through various placement opportunities, job fairs with various private sector banks and NBFCs.
How many training centers BankEdge has across India? What are the business and operational models of these centers?
Basically, we have five own centers in Mumbai and apart from that we have around 60 franchise centers across India. We started with two centers in 2014 and today we are located at 65 locations across India. Every month we are adding two additional centers and reaching to every nukkad and corner of India helping young graduates to identify the right opportunity in the BFSI sector and helping them to achieve their desired dream bank job. We speak to those people who are intending to get into the banking academy business– either they are bankers or ex bankers or some education business people who have some flair for education or they have some sort of partial experience in education business. They come, they join hands and invest into infrastructure, and also mobilize students for us, and market for us. Academic delivery, placement and other technology platforms are being maintained by BankEdge. It is a business partnership and not a franchise kind of a relationship that makes this business model really unique and workable.
What are the criteria of BankEdge’s franchisee model across India?
The model is quite simple. We do a lot of digital marketing activities to acquire interested qualified franchise leads. Once these leads enter our LMS, we contact them, interview them, understand what is their interest and why do they want to get into this type of a business model and with what intention? Only if we are convinced that the person is looking for a long term business association and has some inclination to giving something back to the society in terms of training the candidates, educating youth and making them job ready, then only we extend our franchise opportunity to that particular franchisee. Once we sign up, then we train them on various marketing, academic and placement fronts like how to source placement opportunity, how to mobilize students are. These are the franchise who go in the market and they front end the sales for us. We give them the academic delivery backup, we give them the placement backup and that is how the model works.
What is the future strategy of BANKEDGE for the Year 2020 and beyond?
This is the year where we are trying to create some value for these certifications based on the feedback that we are receiving from the industry. And in the view of the same we have approached certain universities. Jain University is whom we are tying up for the year 2020 and through that we are going to offer a post graduate program in banking and finance in the year 2020. We will be making it available through our website and through all our franchise centers across India.
Apart from that, we are also working on a PGDM program whereby we are changing the scenario of today’s general MBA or a general PGDM to a dynamic industry linked PGDM program because AICTE gives you a lot of opportunity and liberty to design your own curriculum. In association with some premium B-schools we are launching a PGDM program especially designed for the banking and finance sector. Very soon you will see BankEdge getting into PGDM training business as well apart from the PGP and certification business. Year 2020 is also the year to think beyond BankEdge and so we are also putting our hands into English language training because it is the need of the hour, English language is a corporate requirement and today unfortunately our young graduates though they are good on paper as far as their academic skills or their eligibility is concerned but they are not able to go and grab the interview opportunity with confidence. So, personality development, confidence development, English communication development, interview skills development, are the type of courses that we are going to launch under the banner called SkillsEdge..
Article written on TechPlus Education Technology.
