Niranjan Waghmare founded Vertois Training and Consultancy in 2011 to provide skills training to students from smaller towns and cities in India, as most training programs only targeted major cities. He developed training programs focused on sectors with high attrition like retail and quick service restaurants. The programs combine classroom learning with practical skills and placements. Starting in Pune and Solapur, Vertois has now trained over 120 students, and Waghmare plans to expand the training centers to other cities by 2015 to help address India's large skills gap.

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Small Town Skilling
Cast aside
Waghmare cannily observed how most
of the big players in this space were only
targeting the big cities. Again, it was
only the graduates and post-graduates
who got the most attention from these
players and consequently, the jobs.
No one was really looking at the
boys and girls from Middle India who
had a basic level of education. "Youth
in cities can manage to get a job after a
few months of struggle. But people from
Tier II and Tier III cities consistently face
problems," believes Waghmare, Founder
Vertois Training and Consultancy.
In 2012, Waghmare built a model
to penetrate the interior parts of
Maharashtra and approached the
Retail Association of India (RA!) with a
proposal for a training program for Class
XII pass students. Retail was the right
sector, he believed, given the high rates
of attrition and the lack of trained staff.
The RAIpartnership gave Waghmare
content for retail training designed by
human resource (HR) managers from
various retail organizations. Trainees
of this program receive a RAI certif-
icate on completion of the course.
Waghmare says that the first batch of
six students from Pune was trained in
mid-2012 and soon quickly placed in the
retail sector.
Staying on course with regard to fill-
ing the gap in sectors facing high attri-
tion and constant shortage in staff,
Waghmare targeted the quick service
restaurant (QSR)sector next, where he
was successful in the training program
he conducted.
These two pilot programs encour-
aged Waghmare to open a small
office in Solapur in October 2012.
Vertois Training and Consultancy trains job aspirants from Middle India
• ASHNA AMBRE
L
ast year, in a column for The
New York Times, a senior part-
ner at a well-known consult-
ing firm brought to the
mainstream what people within India
Inc. always knew-a major chunk of the
nation's graduates. and post-graduates
were unemployable. The skills and the
aptitude required by the industry were
found wanting though grades and mark
sheets were aplenty. Some of the basic
requirements, like a fair knowledge of
English and technical know-how were
not being met with by India's secondary
and higher education system.
The Indian government took note of
it. One of its recently announced devel-
opmental goals is to employ 500 million
youth by 2020 and the National Skill
Development Corporation was set up
towards this aim. But experts know that
the government can't pull this off alone.
The private sector would have to pitch in
to solve its own headache.
The gap
Niranjan Waghmare spent a decade and
a half in corporate life after his engi-
neering degree; 13 of them in Europe.
In 2010, he came back to India to head
an American firm, where he had a cushy
but albeit restless tenure.
Waghmare was one of the many who
saw the need for increased private sector
participation in skills training. He had
been directly affected by this skills gap-
the problems he faced while employing
people from India during his stint in
the West were still fresh in his memory.
"Our managers in India would interview
a lot of people and select a very small
percentage of that big group. I saw first-
hand about the gap people were talking
about," he recollects. Waghmare quit
his job in 2011, and in August of that
same year, set up Pune-based skill
training company, Vertois Training and
- Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. with a seed capi-
tal of ns lakh. Waghmare knew that
the gap he was looking to address was
large-even one percent of the oppor-
tunity could be a huge revenue driver.
ON THE RISE
POPULATION
INCREASE FROM
2001 TO 2026
83PRECENT
OFTHIS
INCREASE
WILLEEIN
15-59 AGE
GROUP
~~
If this
demographic
dividend is
harnessed
by 2025,
then India's
per capita
income will be
$4,100 (~2,21,400) in 2025
$9,802 (~5,29,308) in 2040
$20,836 (~11,25,144) by 2050
Source: UNDP India and NSDC July 2012 report

2. -~'t~~~"'~'S'S~"Q,'i:'S~'l'li&'!ii!ii&~'1i1ii!fiii!!!&ii!i!iiii!ii!iiii!!iII&~'!ii!ii&*'i; eThe power to do more
PROVIDING SKILLS: Niranjan Waghmare III NACHIKETGUJAR
From there, his company has been
carrying out training programs one
after the other targeting the two
aforementioned sectors.
A right mix
Waghmare says his training programs
are a mix of theory and practical class-
room training, where he uses external
specialist trainers. For instance, students
of the QSR course will be trained in
conversational English, operating
kitchen equipment, and understanding
different menus.
The idea is to apprise students with
the responsibilities expected of them,
and then equip them with the skills
required to cater to the job profile.
Shruti Raghuvanshi, a former student,
and now a customer care executive with
Shopper's Stop says that personality
development and communication skills
were an important part of the program.
"But it was the special emphasis on all
aspects of the retail business with a
description of job profiles that helped
me a lot," she says.
Waghmare included corporate train-
ing to his packages in early 20l3. Earlier
this year, he also diversified into the
hospitality sector, and the underserved
sub-segment of housekeeping services.
For the retail and QSR sector, Vertois has
already trained 120 students.
According to Waghmare, course fees
are between ~8,500 to n5,000 with
the corporate training packages being
the costliest.
Having established centers in Pune
and Solapur, Waghmare now plans to
enter Aurangabad, Nagpur and Kolhapur
by 2014. Depending on the success,
Vertois will enter other states in 2015.
Waghmare thinks aloud and artic-
ulates his doubts about the ability
of students from smaller cities not
responding well to city life or getting
intimidated when they are on the job.
"We explain this challenge that students
may face during the program so they
are mentally prepared, but still there
are issues," he claims. He would know,
being a small town boy from Solapur. [j
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