Bangalore, Friday, 18th January 2008: After empowering more than 55,000 students in 30 cities in North, West and East India, The NIS Academy is planning to expand its operations in South India. The Academy will open educational centres offering employability linked programmes in key cities in South, such as Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Cochin, Coimbatore. Trivandrum, Mysore besides others, by March 2008. With 10 new centres in South, the Academy aims to benefit 2500 students through its unique employability linked programmes. The announcement was made today by Mr. Manoj Chawla, Senior Vice President, The NIS Academy, at the India Franchise & Retail Expo’ 07 – 08.

The decision to enter South follows the Academy’s recent launch of unique short term certificate courses in Retail. Both the announcements are in line with The NIS Academy’s plans to expand its portfolio of employability linked programmes and to increase its network across all the key cities in the country.

Speaking on the expansion plans, Mr. Muralidhar Rao, President & COO, NIS Sparta said, “The Southern region today is a key market for almost all companies in high growth industries such as Retail, FMCG, Banking & Finance, Auto among others. With companies expanding their operations in the region, the demand for skilled and market ready manpower has increased manifold. We see a great opportunity, to equip the vast pool of educated manpower with necessary skills and know-how, to become successful professionals and fill the talent gap that exists today.”

Buoyed by the phenomenal growth of the retail industry, the Academy launched two new short term certificate courses in Retail in the 1st week of January. These courses are designed to fulfill the needs for a workforce that is energetic, skilled and ready to take on the retail revolution. The NIS Academy plans to create over 5000 skilled and groomed retail professionals for the shop floor level, in a year. The courses will also be available at the new centres that The NIS Academy launches in South India.

Highlighting strengths of the NIS Academy, Mr. Manoj Chawla, said, “The NIS Academy’s aim is to provide employability linked education to aspirants and grooming a skilled, market-ready workforce for various industries. Over the past 17 years we have assimilated and developed tremendous understanding of the unique Indian Market. Today, we have the capability of developing customised programmes to meet the specific skill needs of the industry.”

The NIS Academy’s centres in South will offer the following employment oriented courses to aspirants: Post Graduate Diploma in Applied Management (PGDAM), Advanced Diploma in Management and Applied Skills (ADMAS), Certificate courses in Retail – Retail Act and Retail Lead, MBA in Applied Management*, BBA in Applied Management*, Effective Communication and Personality Development (ECPD) and Speak Up.

About The NIS Academy

The NIS Academy is a division of NIS Sparta Ltd (Reliance-ADA Group company), Asia’s leading training, education and learning solutions provider. In addition to academic knowledge, The NIS Academy aims to hone the student’s professional skills in areas like team building, enhancing flexibility and adaptability, increasing ability to deal with ambiguity and stress, tackling challenges and taking initiatives. These skills are not found in any curriculum and need to be enhanced or developed. The rigorous training provided at The NIS Academy equips students with knowledge, skills and attitudes to succeed and make them market ready.

Possessing over 17 years experience in the learning and training domain, the NIS Academy offers programmes that are based on innovative and interactive teaching methodologies derived from the experience of training the corporate world. In effect, the NIS Academy brings the Corporate to the Classroom. The Academy believes in incorporating state-of-art technology into its education and training programmes. With this purpose in mind, the academy has formed strategic alliances with Eagle’s Flight, Canada and Huthwaite International, UK.

*Note: The MBA in Applied Management and BBA in Applied Management courses are offered through Annamalai University.