SQTL to add 30 more training centers

Pratima Harigunani

PUNE: SQTL, a training company in the realm of software testing, is planning to expand by adding 25 to 30 centres this year to enhance its nationwide coverage.

The first phase of the expansion would primarily be through business associates. This phase would be followed by overseas presence later.

Shashikant Mohite, joint founder director of SQTL Labs, shared that the national expansion would concentrate on north, west and south India. “Barring specific locations, we would not be keen on east regions. We will take the associate route that has a natural advantage of capitalizing our well-established brand.”

SQTL currently, has 14 centres of which seven are company-owned. They are located in Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore.

On the international centers, Mohite added, “There are opportunities and response from the Middle East, US and Australia but we have kept the plans on hold. After the national expansion and depending upon the availability of bandwidth, we will take them ahead. We can have one center per country.”

The Rs 6 crore company also targets a revenue of Rs 12 to 15 crore this year.

SQTL currently has an intake of 350 to 400 students each month across its centers. It aims to increase to around 35 students per month per center and a resultant Rs 1 crore gross monthly collections with the expansion.

Corporate training accounts for 25 per cent of the company’s business now, while the rest comes from public training.

In the long term, possibilities of developing tools for the industry as well a foray into testing services would be explored too but Mohite maintains, “There are many opportunities around but we would first like to leverage our current strengths. Services, in fact, is a different ballgame altogether.”

A Gartner report had estimated the testing services business to become $13 billion by 2010 of which around $6.1 billion is expected to be outsourced with India’s slice pegged at 70 per cent share of around $4 billion, as against around a billion dollars in 2007.

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