NIIT Ltd

[tushar24]

Thanks for the feedback.

The student training vertical is less than 20% of the total sales and not the profit engine for now and it’s getting Demerged so we can pick what we like if one isn’t convinced on quality.

Also they have shifted their delivery model to online learning and the technology courses offered are much better than earlier and its been 8-10 years since then so things change.

Upon doing some scuttlebutt, I found that Wipro has launched a Training + Placement program under the Velocity name.

Its a 4-6 months training program which is conducted by StackRoute and RPS (both NIIT’s subsidiary) and 2-3 more other companies.

Training is in the very latest technology areas such as MERN stack, Azure, GCP, AWS, Salesforce etc.

The package offered is 5-6 LPA.

The program is free of cost for the student, but it’s value is 30K - 40K according to the brochure.

Now what I interpret is that Wipro is trusting NIIT for training the students on their behalf and then hire them with a good starting package.

Must be doing something good to be able to convince them and take responsibility.

Similar type of Training + Guaranteed Placement programs are being done with other companies such as Axis Bank, Boeing, Capgemini, Cognizant, Mindtree etc

These all are reputed MNCs and trusting NIIT for their talent needs.

Recently watched this interview by Birlasoft’s CEO

Talking Point: Russia-Ukraine Crisis Impact On Global I.T. Spending

He mentions they are looking to go and train the students in partnership with colleges or institutes and build a Talent Pipeline of students who are ready to be deployed on projects as soon as they graduate.

[Simrat]

Yes, Indian IT services companies do tie up with NIIT or Aptech. But to be honest, lets say if I need to learn MERN stack or Azure or AWS or mostly anything, I can simply open YT and learn for free or even I feel that Udacity Coursera with paid fees can provide better learning online with really good projects. So I always think sometimes companies just tick the box and waste money on NIIT for such IT trainings.

If anyone from IT has different view, let me know.

[tushar24]

You are right that anyone can go and learn from Udemy/YT for free and learn at their own pace.

However this requires the student to be honest and dutiful about it.

Having graduated from a tier 3 engineering college, I have seen my batchmates opt for online courses (udemy, coursera etc) and YT channels but fail to follow through till the end and sometimes even still be left with not full understanding of the language/concept taught.

The people who are able to self learn from these courses /videos may have the discipline to follow through and might not even be a fit for MNCs such as Wipro, TCS, Cognizant etc.

These people go for startups or FAANG type companies.

For MNCs opting to go through a company like NIIT to provide training is a way to ensure that the student actually learns and follow through on the content.

The MNC then also has someone to hold responsible and conduct doubt classes if needed.

Also I forgot to mention that the Wipro program is for both Non-IT and IT engineering students.

So basically a civil eng or chemical eng student is very new to programming and has to learn from scratch so online courses might not be very helpful for them as these things require a 2 way communication and a personal touch.

[chikspat]

I do work in World Class Petrochemical company.
The most important part of any training is of course “train” employees, which can be done from open sources.
The second most important of training is compliance to required standard/procedure/audit requirements, where open sources can not be counted.

[Gautam_Chopra]

Most of the trainings are done in house. and those trainings are the best in terms of building a sound foundation which can be used internally.
Most of the outside trainers will teach you about the course that is not customised according to the company. thus i would not put lot of weightage unless there are testimonials from certain customers of NIIT ltd

[tushar24]

Yes it’s fair to think that in house training would be better than outsourced training, hence the global training outsource figure for top 1000 companies is 20-25%, rest being in house. So significant headroom if things change.

Some concall snippets regarding the TAM and outlook.

Some case studies to see how NIIT helps corporates

Case Studies and Customer Success Stories - NIIT

[tushar24]

Good commentary overall

Win rate and contract size increasing
Pipeline is strong

TpaaS seeing good traction in BFSI, Retail, IT

Reiterated $400M-500M Revenue for CLG in 5 years time and 1500 Cr revenue (5x current RR) for SNC in 4-5 years time with potential for more.

NIIT Ltd के MD Vijay Thadani से जानिए कंपनी में Value Unlocking और Demerger की कैसी है गती ?

[arjunbadola]

I know someone who just got employed in Cognizant and was provided with videos for training via company access of Udemy.

[tushar24]

Thanks for the information.

I picked the cognizant name from StackRoute’s website

StackRoute Learning

Cognizant might be using the Training + Placement or the TpaaS model by NIIT.

And it isn’t necessary for a company to use a single vendor for all its requirements.

The market is big enough to absorb many players.

[Shauryayadav]

Yes Wipro Uses Stack route for their platform while training their employees. The canara bank project which wipro handles require Stack route training before onboarding employees.

But it’s before covid may be in 2019 they are using. At present I’m not sure about this but if wipro is their client in present then obviously they are using Stack route.

[Shauryayadav]

My questions:

• Anyone in this forum has taken any course or a part of NIIT corporate training in their firm?
• The latest Course provided by NIIT in domains like cybersecurity, cloud etc is really worth in comparison to other sites?

[Malhar_Manek]

Why would they demerge the CLG business into NLSL and retain SNC in NIIT? Typically, the smaller business is the demerged entity while the larger business remains in the parent entity, right?

Disc- no holdings as of now but tracking closely

[Investor01]

Probably because they’re expecting SnC to get higher valuations and recognized as Ed-Tech Company given the Ed-Tech frenzy going around (which is wearing off lately). They also have a higher guidance, more like 5x in 5 Years, which seems too optimistic considering the competition is intense in this space.

Disc : Invested for CLG biz.

[Malhar_Manek]

I have some questions, if someone can please answer:

1. What is driving the reduction in DSO/receivable days?
2. What is the customer acquisition process in CLG? Does the client reach out (RFI/RFQ) or is it proactive selling from the training provider (like in ER&D)?
3. The opportunity for a demerger had been available for a long time- they could have demerged even 3/5/7 years earlier. So why now? What has changed now?

Disc- no holdings as of now but tracking closely

[tushar24]

1. On DSO, earlier NIIT used to have some Government contracts which had long receivables but since then they have moved out of B2G contracts.

IIRC Q4FY2021/Q3FY2021 had some mentions of this and subsequent steps taken but not specifics.

Also since their Ed-Tech vertical deals with individuals and they have to pay upfront which actually makes the working capital negative for that part and thus aids DSO calculation.

Snippet from Q3FY22 Conference call

2. RFPs/RFQs, Referrals and recent con calls had mentions of upping the sales force to bring in more clients so proactive selling is also there. I would also say their alumni network but thats a long shot.

3. Earlier SNC was brick and mortar model - they’d have physical centers which would limit their scalability and have high fixed costs. During covid, they changed it to 100% digital which has low fixed costs, highly scalable (recorded courses, larger batch size, larger client reach as not limited by geography etc)

Also the business recently started to be profitable thanks to RPS acquisition so they can sustain now unlike before.

If they had demerged 3-5 years back they would have to invest heavily in fixed costs assets which would bog down their finances but now its a asset light model and the management now seems to have a clear strategy in mind after learning their lessons in Government contracts and other B2G/B2B activities which were not as lucrative as thought to be (school, apps, k12 etc)

Though I still would have preferred if they had waited some years to demerge after SNC had some stable profitable years but 1.5 years time is still there till actual demerger.

[Investor01]

Few Notes from Recent Annual Day / Awards Day of NIIT :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KacpGi-x5CY&t=21s

CLG Business

• Meta (Facebook) had a long standing relationship with Accenture, but they moved their contract to NIIT. Similarly Airbus also switched from Conduent to NIIT. 3 USPs working for NIIT are Expertise, Experience and Attention that each client gets.

< My opinion : Switching is the real pain in terms of transitioning cost for L&D Outsource, Switching to NIIT suggests some strong capability and perception in market >

• 100% contract renewal record in last 7 years. No other player in industry has. Won more clients in this year than any other competition

• Some of the Clients includes Shell, LEM, RECO, Meta, Sanofi, Boeing, Airbus, Facebook, Redhat, Unilever, Anglo American, BOA, Nokia, Cisco, Rolce Royce

• CLG is Top 5 in the world.

SnC Business

• Coursera collaborated with Stackroute to get some of the courses on Coursera. Working on some more projects like these

• T-PaaS : Provided large set of employees under PGP (Post graduate programs) and RM (relationship manager) to ICICI

• NIIT Digital : Scaled up Field Sales Team to approach College / Universities. Spending heavily on Sales and Marketing. A Large mass media campaign will launch next month. Focus will be to bring large volumes this year, improve gross margins and bringing the cost of acquisition down to become this business sustainable

• Stackroute - 40 new logos in the year

• Sales and Service excellence expanded capabilities and won clients like Bata, Daikan, Cloud Connect, First Source

• BFSI segment started 2 years back with strategic partnership with axis bank, grown that partnership to the extent for it to become the largest contributor to LSC business this year.

[Shauryayadav]

What about Indian IT client do they don’t have any major Indian IT companies as their clients?because in beginning of 2019 wipro is using Stack route in their Canara Bank project

[Shauryayadav]

I have one question if there is some slow down in US the corporate training will get hit bcoz it’s a discretionary expenses which will impact NIIT CLG business.

Secondly What about their Real estate client in Canada if there is some softness in Canada real estate will it impact NIIT?

[Investor01]

I only mentioned clients for Managed Training (CLG segment). Stackroute is part of SnC business, Wipro still must be their client as mentioned in their website.

Not all corporate trainings are discretionary, large part of the trainings provided are regulatory in nature (compulsory) especially in life-sciences and financial sector. L&D outsourcing has started gaining momentum and it can continue going ahead (no. of MTS Clients gaining each year clearly shows that), however, financial slowdown or crisis can put a damp to corporate training spend as it happened in 2008-09

Not sure about the % mix of revenue for RECO, But it is to provide license training to aspiring real estate agents, so in long term, it will depend on demand of real estate agent job.

I don’t think , at this moment, there are going to be training spend cuts as outsourcing learning / training activity generally saves costs for a firm (which is causing tailwinds) and this segment is very sticky in nature as firm spends months of time with developers and creators to curate content and provide inputs to create a curriculum.

[Malhar_Manek]

@Shauryayadav

it’s a discretionary expenses