Aegis Limited, a leading global business process outsourcing (BPO) provider and part of the Essar Group, today announced that it has joined hands with leading academic and industry partners to launch the first of its kind education venture in the country, which promises to fulfill a very clear need gap faced by the services industry in finding the right talent.
Aegis, Indian Institute of Management – Indore (IIM- I), Service Quality (SQ) Centre (SQ Centre), and Customer Operations Performance Center (COPC Inc.) have come together to launch Institute of Customer Experience Management (ICEM), a first-of-its-kind institute designed to train students specifically for the service industry (retail, BFSI, ITeS etc.) through focusing on the customer experience and customer life time value. Subir Ghosh, President, President - Aegis Global Academy, is spearheading the venture.
The inaugural centre opens in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, with the first batch commencing classes from August 2010. Spread across 40,000 square feet of state-of-the-art infrastructure, ICEM plans an intake of 400 students for the 15-month post graduate residential programme, which has been specially designed by IIM- I, SQ Centre, and COPC Inc. in active consultation with the industry.
Aparup Sengupta, Managing Director and Global CEO, Aegis Ltd., said, “India is a service economy and hence for the services sector, customer is the very raison d'être. While we have several institutes teaching other business aspects like finance and marketing, academically customer experience management has still not found its due recognition even though the industry very well understands and appreciates its importance. This disconnect results in huge training cost and re-orientation for the employer and employee. We are extremely delighted to have found such able partners in IIM-I, SQ Centre, and COPC Inc. in this novel venture to prepare future-ready managers.”
The unique highlight of the programme is its 65% weightage to work experience comprising managing live customer channels of contact and internship opportunities, and 35% weightage to theory, totally leading to 100% job readiness. Students can opt to specialize in any of the five sectors, viz. telecom, banking, insurance, retail, and ITes. Besides IIM – I faculty, SQ Centre trainers, and COPC auditors, the students would be taught by industry professionals, giving them the right mix of theory and industry knowledge.
“There is an urgent need of the hour for people specialized in the aspects of customer experience management and customer lifecycle management, concepts that drive profitability in the services industry. We are happy to partner with Aegis and bring to forth this unique programme which we are confident will find takers from the industry. After all, it is designed by the industry itself,” said Prof Ravi Chandran, director, Indian Institute of Management – Indore.
“SQ Centre, with her extensive global experience in defining and certifying customer experience management, is the de facto standard for excellence. This marks our first foray in India partnering an education institute in India to instill the concept and importance of customer experience right at the foundation level itself. We are pleased to share our insights in customer experience management which will definitely add value to the industries,” said Dr. Buck P. Tang, Group Director and Principal Consultant, Service Quality (SQ) Centre.
“As the leading authority on quality standards for processes in the service industry, our standards provide a high performance set of global best practices and benchmarks that simultaneously increase service quality and customer satisfaction while lowering costs. COPC will bring to the table the same rigorous quality processes used by over 1,500 organisations across sectors and geographies,” said Cliff Moore, Chairman and Co-Founder, COPC Inc.
Aegis has already tied up with leading services companies in banking, telecom, insurance and retail for industry-academia partnership and also for interning and placements opportunities for the students.
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