Driven by his desire to create social impact, Pramod Bhasin, co-founder of Skills Academy, says his newest acquisition is just a small piece in a bigger jigsaw puzzle.

The two-year-old Skills Academy was founded by Bhasin, who was in General Electric for 25 years and was later the ex-CEO and founder of business process outsourcing Genpact, and Pia Singh, the daughter of DLF Chairman KP Singh. Skills Academy on Monday acquired A4e India, an Indian subsidiary of the UK-based A4e Ltd, which provides skill development, training and placements across various industries, for an undisclosed amount.

“My Genpact and GE Capital experience has shown that a good acquisition is a great way to scale up. We are looking for more acquisitions,” said Bhasin, speaking to BusinessLine .

“With the A4e acquisition, we are acquiring a team that is highly knowledgeable about working in many different States across the country, in rural areas, and especially across hard to reach places in the hinterland. The team at A4e India understand the needs of the local community,” said Bhasin, adding that the deal was “a perfect fit, for it would have taken us a lot of time to acquire the local knowledge and then get started.”

Bhasin added that A4e also tends to place 75 per cent of the people they train with local employers. “This year, they will train around 20,000 people. The aim is to scale it up and ensure revenues of ₹15 crore,” he said.

Second innings Eager to begin his second innings, the non-executive Vice-Chairman of Genpact said skill development and financial inclusion for the unorganised sector would bring about a greater transformational impact.

“Given our background, and our connections, and our capital, we decided to give back something to society. Though we have just got started and invested around ₹10 crore in the venture (Skills Academy), we will put in more. We are not looking for infusion of capital from other sources. We want to build a scalable high quality training company, and we need to invest another ₹30 crore,” he said.

Replying to the possibility of a sell out, he said: “We are in it for the long term. This is a place (training) where we will need to make long-term investments and build high-quality teams. The returns are not great in this industry, but we want to be a spark in the whole process of evolution.”

Stating that India needs to train millions of people every year, Bhasin said Skills Academy already trains around 3-4 lakh people every year.

Skills Academy has been working in the organised sector, and currently trains across Orissa, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. “As of now, we are dealing with the services sector. We will now expand into healthcare, textiles and undertake training for technical trades like the construction sector,” he said.

Related Topics