A large, growing sector in need of specialised workforce — that is what describes India’s telecom sector today. According to Indian Brand Equity Foundation, India is the world’s second-largest telecommunications market, with 898 million subscribers as on March 2013. For a market of this scale, the jobs opportunities are bound to be as large too.
“As per the New Telecom Policy, about 2.5 million jobs will be available by 2015,” reveals Prof Dr. Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool, Mumbai. Anticipating this, WeSchool along with Mahanagar Telephones Nigam Limited (MTNL) has launched management courses specifically targeting the telecom sector — Post Graduate Programme in Telecom Management (PGPTM) and Certificate in Telecom Marketing and Management (CTMM).
Prof. Salunkhe explains the need for such specialised management courses: “Well-trained and groomed techno-managers are the need of the hour, as they will be able to study the market to facilitate customised service to the subscribers using IT tools. There is a need to explore the customers’ requirement for new value-added services and provide what the customer desires.”
As part of this course, students will undergo real-time telecom technology sessions in various labs with state-of- the-art contemporary equipment at the MTNL training centre combined with necessary exposure to management concepts. Because of the specialisation, students who take up the course are expected to be able to manage processes, operations, maintenance, installations, budgeting, planning, sales-marketing, CRM , distribution, training and more exclusively for the telecom sector.
What does the future of the industry look like? “With the next round of spectrum auction scheduled for Janaury 2014, the ever-increasing teledensity, the number of mobile Internet users set to touch 164.8 million by 2015 (as predicted by KPMG), the telecom sector is on the brink of a phenomenal growth in the times to come. On the other hand, the National Optical Fibre Network will open up possibilities of commercially feasible business models for relevant e-services in areas such as education, healthcare, banking and agriculture, in a Public-Private-Panchayat ecosystem,” says the professor.
Even the 2,50,000 villages connected through the optic fibre highway will become major players in influencing the markets as telecom services get more accessible and affordable.
