Learning’s just a click away

Vikas Joshi, an IIT Mumbai graduate of 1985 came to entrepreneurship fairly quickly. After graduation, Joshi, like several IITians decided to go to the US for his masters, but unlike others, he did not stay back and came back to start his own business.

When he landed in India, the IT sector was just picking up pace. A meeting at the University of Pune with Swati Ketkar, a PhD student led him to see a business opportunity in the e-learning space. Swati and Vikas joined hands to start Harbringer Technology to develop software products for companies looking at automating their internal training systems.

The company which they established in Pune has, after 16 years, touched revenues of Rs 11 crore, for the year ended March ’06. And is targeting revenues of Rs 18 crore this fiscal. It has more than 180 employees, and plans to add another 100 more over the coming year. Vikas feels his company is poised for growth.

Harbringer has a good portfolio of products, has developed a global reseller network and an online training market. Harbinger’s client list includes, i-flex, Infosys, Wipro, Reliance, DaimlerChrysler, World Health Organisation, Citibank, HSBC, Wells Fargo Bank (US), AstraZeneca, Abbott Laboratories, Aviva, AXA, Tesco, Cathay Pacific, Changi International Airport, ICICI Prudential, Michigan State University, Florida State University and Vaal University (South Africa).

The company’s flagship product is an e-authoring tool — Elicitus, which is used by trainers, educators and other e-learning creators to develop digital learning tools.

It helps trainers convert text-based learning content into digital learning. Harbringer’s second product is called Raptivity and is based on a patent-pending technology that allows users to build interactive e-learning in the shortest possible time.

Starting on the home turf, Harbinger launched the first product, Elicitus, in 1995. Now, Elicitus and Raptivity have been successfully adapted and deployed in over 16 industry verticals, including BFSI, pharma & healthcare, IT, telecom, education, automobiles, process and chemical, etc.

Elicitus can also be used to create e-learning content in various languages. Joshi believes that continuous knowledge enhancement is an integral element of knowledge management. To enforce this principle at his company, every employee is encouraged to enhance their skills in multiple technologies and not just in one or two core areas.

On the future of the industry, Joshi envisions that the ‘3I model’ will be critical to a company’s success — Innovation, user-friendly Interactions and Internet marketing. “Products and services companies can no longer differentiate on cost or quality. They must innovate,” he says.

“Our culture is to out-innovate not only the competition, but ourselves too.” Joshi believes that significant changes will sweep the way e-learning is done today and marketing is done for software and services internationally. “People will demand interactivity which spurs interest, engages attention and improves knowledge retention.

Given the need to products interactive e-learning in large volumes, the time for tools for rapid interactivity is fast approaching,” he says.

Moreover, the internet is also driving marketing towards research, user-generated content, social networks, blogs and other techniques that demand knowledge and technology, according to him. He feels that it is good to be a part of the change that is sweeping the industry.