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GROUP - 10

THE NIIT STORY

NIIT was the first company to start a chain of computer education centers in the organized sectorin India imparting IT training to a broad spectrum of people including students, IT professionals,school children and managers. Entrepreneurs Rajendran, Pawar and Vijay K Thadani, who were

working with HCL promoted the company in 1981.

In early 2001, India's leading information technology (IT) education company the National

Institute of Information Technology Ltd. (NIIT) launched an aggressive marketing campaign tospread awareness among college students about the necessity of strong IT fundamentals and the

need for developing new skills in the IT field. The company also launched a television campaignfeaturing its brand ambassador Vishwanathan Anand (Anand), world chess champion.

Various Campaigns were conducted to highlight the importance of a 'right' IT training institute

and how NIIT met all the required standards.Analysts felt that this was the first time that an ITeducation player had undertaken such an elaborate, nationwide campaign using divergent

communication media. In January 2002, NIIT launched another nationwide campaign for itsGNIIT career program. The ad campaign promised students, 100% job assurance or money back.

This was done in order to attract students.

It was observed by the industry that the company did not have many options. Net profits declinedby 57% from Rs 2.24 billion in 2000 to Rs 960 million in 2001

The companys market share was as follows:-

Year Market share

1992 70%

1996 41%

2001 36%

In 1989, NIIT got recognition from the American Council on Education (ACE), which enabled its students

to get credit exemptions from around 1700 university members of ACE. Over the next few years, the

NIIT brand became synonymous with IT education in India. In 1993, the company came out with an

initial public offering of 3.6 million shares. It emerged as one of the largest network of Microsoft

Certified Technical Education Centers (CTEC) in India.

NIIT not only pioneered the concept of IT education and training in India, it also revolutionized

IT education by taking it to small towns. It was the first organization to market the concept ofteaching computers for students in the age group of 18-21 and then moving on to specialized

application-oriented courses for professionals.

NIIT opened 87 centers, franchises as well as company-owned during July-September 2001.

NIIT introduced the iGNIIT course with a web-centric syllabus. For this course, the company partnered

with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Citibank, to provide seven-year study loans to

students - around Rs 4 billion was provided for disbursing loans to students.

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In 1990 NIIT introduced the concept of Scholarships to attract students, which later on became Industry

wide practice.

NIIT also entered in to alliances with foreign universities to help its students gain admissions in foreign

universities for higher education.

In the mid 1996 it launched the Learning through Education and Direct Application (LEDA) program.

Through LEDA it successfully integrated multimedia with education.

In the same year NIIT launched an online learning facility through website www.netvarsity.com

Aptech and SSI were NIITs major competitors

In 1991 NIIT signed Anand as its brand ambassador and launched the mind champion campaing

featuring him in print and TV advertisements.

BusinessRevenueBreakup

Year Learning Software

1997-98 58% 42%

1998-99 54% 46%

1999-00 49% 51%

2000-01 55% 45%

In order to improve its performance NIIT decided to separate its software business from learning

business by creation two vertical operations

For improving revenues from its software business, NIIT decided to increase its focus on legacysoftware services, including upgrading old computer systems to new technologies. A decision

was taken to increase the focus on the retail finance business by providing solutions in customer

relationship management.

There were various initiatives taken by NIIT such as:-

y To reach out to various customers NIIT opened 87 centers, franchises as well as company ownedduring July-September 2001

y NIIT extensively started promoting the four year GNIIT course to attract students in long termcareer in IT

y To cater to the need of school children it started a project K-12 which focused on implementingprojects for school children.

Due to these initiatives at the end of December 2001 quarter the students enrolment was 159,163 as

against 51943 in the same quarter of the previous year.

In July 2002 NIIT renamed its global software business as NIIT Technologies.

NIIT had its global presence in Asia, Australia, Europe, America and Africa

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