Investing in offshore staff development

TATA Interactive Systems (TIS) is setting up a series of ‘Offshore Development Centres’ (ODCs) to develop custom-built e-learning programmes for clients

Sambit Mohapatra, the head of TIS in the UK, explained: “TIS clients, such as Consignia, have testified to the cost-efficiency and effectiveness of getting TIS to design and develop e-learning materials. Earlier this year, TIS developed e-learning materials for Consignia that won the Personnel Today E-learning Award for the best e-learning implementation.”

Speaking at the time of the award, a Consignia spokesperson said: “Consignia has calculated the quantifiable benefits of delivering learning materials electronically, rather than via ‘traditional’ classroom-based methods, as a saving of well in excess of £200,000 on the delivery of learning in the year 2000/01.“

Moreover, the investment in these e-learning materials in this year means that many on-going training costs are nil. Consignia believes that, for one project targeted at its business systems community, it has saved at least £0.5m.

“In addition, there are a number of benefits in using a custom-built e-learning content provider that is based in India – operating some 4.5 hours or 5.5 hours in summer ahead of local time,” the Consignia spokesperson added. “The time difference often allows a quicker turnaround on the production of learning materials that might have been the case if they had been developed here in the UK. With production reviews, the time difference really helps and, where possible, design concepts and content changes are implemented in time for a desktop review in the UK early next morning."

“There are also cost benefits to be gained from having e-learning materials developed by an outsourced team, which is also strengthened by one that is placed ‘offshore’ – principally because India works to a different economic model than does the UK. There is a trade-off here, though, because while there is, typically, a 30 per cent cost saving in producing the e-learning materials, the cost of managing the project is slightly higher than it might otherwise have been had the development team been ‘in-house’.”

Mohapatra explained: “The concept of the ODC is slightly different to the way TIS works with clients such as Consignia. Where TIS develops an ODC for a client, it recruits, trains and manages a team of people who are dedicated to working purely for that client – but offshore.“

TIS attributes much of its success to working to internationally agreed quality standards,” Mohapatra continued. “Naturally, since TIS is managing this team on behalf of the client, TIS undertakes to ensure that the ODC staff also meet the highest quality assurance standards.”

TIS has been assessed at level 5 on the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) scale – a quality assurance mark granted to only a few of the world’s leading organisations. It also has ISO 9002 certification; it implements the ‘balanced scorecard’ approach, and also follows the TATA Business Excellence Model devised by the US ‘quality guru’, Malcolm Baldridge.

According to Sanjaya Sharma, TIS’s chief executive: “We have continually increased our productivity by four per cent per quarter for the last ten months. In effect, what we used to be able to do in six man months, we are now able to do in five man months – and, so, we can offer our clients both time and cost savings, while continuing to meet stringent, internationally-agreed quality standards as far as the resulting e-learning materials are concerned.”

TIS’s ODC clients are only charged a flat, hourly rate for having access to a dedicated team of e-learning professionals offshore who can develop organisation-specific e-learning programmes.

July 1st, 2002