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QAI, the world's leading process consulting organization addressing Operational Excellence for the IT, BPO and knowledge intensive services sectors today announced a series of education, testing and certification initiatives under the Edista brand. Edista in Finnish language (edistää) means “to enhance, to facilitate”.
Responding to the demand supply gap in the IT industry, and with the intention of building capacity and capability amongst IT professionals, QAI has announced an online curriculum, EdistaLearning, an initiative in the Software Testing sphere, Edista Testing Institute, and a skills assessments and measurements initiative, EdistaCertifications, targeted at both the corporate and the retail sectors.
EdistaLearning is the e-learning initiative of QAI which facilitates knowledge, competence and skill creation in the areas of Software Engineering and Quality Management with over 45 courses under 13 domains. Individuals can get anytime, anywhere training over the internet or the intranet. EdistaLearning is an exclusive coming together of expert content from subject matter “gurus” and practical insights from QAI’s training and consulting experience. EdistaLearning course contents are created alongwith international gurus such as Dr. Roger S. Pressman, Bruce Schoor, Steve Bender, etc.
EdistaLearning responds to the shortage of large numbers of consistently trained, readily available fully employable IT skilled manpower. According to a NASSCOM – McKinsey estimate, if offshore outsourcing work grows as rapidly as expected, the study predicts, in five years India will have a shortfall of 150,000 IT engineers and 350,000 business-process staff. The numbers at the global level are equally alarming.
It is estimated that the size of the global IT workforce is 5.2 million, out of which 0.88 million are Indians. The size of the IT training market is 22.5 billion USD, out of which 10-15 % spend is on Process, Quality & Project Management trainings (USD 2-3 bn).
There are huge manpower requirements and training needs of IT sector, with some estimates putting the numbers at about 140,000 people for this fiscal amongst the top 10 IT companies. (TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam each have all announced plans of recruiting upwards of 20,000 professionals this year). The only way such large numbers of personnel can be rapidly and effectively deployed is by leveraging technology to rapidly and effectively train the people. EdistaLearning provides the much needed relief.
The global e-Learning space throws up some interesting numbers. The space has a CAGR of over 70% and the estimates indicate that the market will touch USD 75 bn by 2010. Moreover as much as 29% of all IT training was delivered through e-Learning last year.
“With our core focus on Quality and process excellence, we were undertaking a large number of training programmes. We realised that the time was right to take the learning to the learner and we moved into online training and soft launched our courses. The initial response was even better than expected and we have christened our offering EdistaLearning. Edista means ‘To Facilitate’ and today the call of the hour is to facilitate learning”, says Navyug Mohnot, CEO, QAI.
EdistaLearning has already tasted success in its soft-launch phase and HP, USA has already purchased thousands of licences over two years for its worldwide usage. HCL has purchased 55,000 + licences, amongst several others including Wipro, etc.
The EdistaLearning online courses are Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) 1.2 & 2.4 compliant. They can be delivered both through the Internet, using a Learning Management System (LMS) and Intranet. The courses can easily be integrated with any SCORM compliant LMS.
QAI has also announced another venture called EdistaTesting Institute. Given the rapidly growing necessity of the testing industry, Edista Testing Institute is setup by QAI as an independent industry – academia collaborative venture, with the focus on training, certifications, and assessments in the field of Software Testing. The institute is designed to operate as a global institute for Software Testing excellence in the Ecosystem, and will focus on consolidating, creating, applying, and amplifying the need for structured practical education in software testing.
Outsourced Testing is a big business Gartner estimates the worldwide software testing market at $13 billion and the global market size of outsourced testing services is around $6.1 billion. India according to reports has the potential to acquire 70% share of the outsourced testing market. There are roughly ten Independent Software Testing (IST) players in India of a reasonable size with a combined turnover of around Rs 200 crores.
Software testing is widely acknowledged as one of the fastest growing segments within the IT services industry. Though, on an average, software services are growing at about 10-12 per cent, testing is growing at more than 50 per cent per annum. This rapid growth in demand for software testing services has had a corresponding impact on the supply side. In 2006 alone, there was a shortfall of 15,000 software testing professionals in India.
QAI, further, has announced EdistaCertifications. This initiative is targeted at providing a standardized, consistent and credible system of assessments to augment the e-learning and testing training initiatives. QAI’s Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA) and Certified Software Test Engineer (CSTE) have already had close to 20,000 professionals as takers in India alone. Organisations with over 1000 certified CSQAs and CSTEs include Accenture, Infosys and TCS. Several others such as Satyam, Cognizant have also invested heavily and have hundreds of certified professionals. Based on the success of these certifications and the orgaisation’s and professional’s need for providing evidence of learning and competence there has been great interest in certifications in India. EdistaCertifications has already developed a new one- Certified Software Quantitative Process Engineer. Several others are slated for launch this year.
About QAI
QAI is a leading global consulting organization addressing ‘Operational Excellence' in IT, BPO and Knowledge intensive service organizations.
Operational Excellence is achieved when organizations do a great job of Project Management, Quality Management, Process Management, Human Capital Management, Innovation Management, Service Management…
QAI facilitates the achievement of operational excellence.
QAI’s regional bases across the globe in the US, Singapore, China, Malaysia, UK and India helps to innovatively distribute and manage engagements across multiple locations.
QAI facilitates enhanced competitiveness through multi-faceted interventions leading to Business Improvement through Consulting, Training, People, Process &l Assessments, Benchmarking, Certification, Conferences, Resource provisioning through Quality Outsourcing and e-Learning.
QAI clients include IBM, Accenture, Wipro, Prudential, Genpact, American Express, Sony, TataMotors and 200 others across 30 countries.
Moreover, QAI believes in contributing to the development of ‘Nations of Software Excellence’ by working closely with government bodies, research institutions, defense organizations, software parks, industry associations and World Bank funded projects in several countries.
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