'Without skills, any degree has no meaning’

Is merely acquiring a degree enough to secure a job? Why do we need skill development? Why does every leader – in politics, business or any other field for that matter – emphasize the importance of learning new skills?

Because it is our skills that will help us stay relevant to the increasing pace of globalization and technological advancements. 

Reiterating the need to skill the youth in various sectors – especially engineering designing - Mr. SK Selvan, Managing Director, CADD Centre Training Services Private Limited, is confident that the need for ‘skilled engineers’ will rise exponentially in the future not just in India but all across the globe.

Excerpts of the interview:

CADD centre has become Asia’s largest skill training centre as far as Computer-Aided Designing and Computer-Aided Manufacturing is concerned, which is a massive accomplishment. What led to the conception of CADD Centre in the first place?

CADD Centre started about 31 years ago in 1987, sometime after the first personal computer was invented. The first AutoCAD software came in the year 1982. So we wanted to bring in the technology to India. In 1987, we started a CADD Training Company as the first authorized training centre for Autodesk anywhere in India.

The first phase of training was only for corporate; to replace the manual drawing boards with computers and CADD software.

Between 1987 and 1995, we were running CADD Centre only to train the employed engineers working in different companies as designers and taught them how to use computers and CADD software for making engineering designs.

We wanted to bring the technology to India first - that is how we started CADD training.

People who were aspiring to become one of the largest in the world in engineering design founded the company.

CADD Centre was founded in the year 1987. Now that we are in 2019, how would you define the journey over the years? Was the trajectory smooth?

Our core competence has been engineering design training and we never diverted to any other field. We started as an engineering design training company and we continue to be an engineering design training company for the last thirty years. It has made us very strong.

Over the period, we have started training across the globe. We understand how the companies work in the world and we design the curriculum based on the global requirement and teach those technologies to the engineers of India.

So global training is available for Indian engineers at Indian price within their comfort.

Though CADD Centre has had its share of difficulties. Whenever the IT or engineering industry faces a challenge, CADD Centre faces the consequences of that challenge.

Because we are the bridge between the IT and the engineering industry - either side something happens, we have to balance between that.

However, CADD Centre continues to be successful because we are focussed on engineering design. We don’t do anything else than engineering design skill development.

We started as a single centre, single product company in Chennai. Currently, we are running about 400+ CADD Centres in about 31 countries. We transact business in 31 different currencies. That way, we are going strong.

India is now producing engineers for the world requirements and not just for Indian requirements. 

Indian engineers are wanted across the globe. There is a need for fully trained Indian engineers across the globe. CADD Centre plays a significant role in identifying individuals who are aspiring to become engineers and engineering designers and providing them with all the techniques, tools and skills to make them globally competitive.

If you had to move away from engineering and consider other sectors, which fields would you like to venture in?

Anything that is related to skill development. The future is going to be for people who have skills. What is important – skill or knowledge? We will say skills coupled with knowledge. Without skills, any degree has no meaning.

If at all CADD Centre moves away from engineering, we will dive into data. CADD Centre would be venturing into anything related to data and artificial intelligence.

Through Live Wire, a separate initiative under the brand of CADD Centre, we work on the futuristic training programs. We are doing a lot of research and trying to understand how it is going to be.

However, there is no reason for us to move away from engineering given that there is a huge need for fully trained engineers.

At times, the salary and other incentives in engineering may come down, but over time, people who focus on engineering and design will see their career grow much faster with much bigger earning opportunity.

More than anything else, they can become entrepreneurs. An engineer who is a good designer can become an entrepreneur. They can do something on their own and they can empower other people by giving employment.

?One of the most aspirational jobs in the country is civil services. Civil servants deal with the complexities of the society and the complexities are getting more complex with each passing day. Would CADD Centre provide short-term skill training to civil servants? If yes, in what sectors?

On the design space, there is not much of scope. CADD Centre has served management training program called Synergy School of Business, which talks about continuous learning.

Civil servants get into civil service based on their academic expertise. In the process of getting sucked into their role, they may not learn something new. They are not up-to-date and this can make them irrelevant to the industry. There is scope for them to update themselves.

We can teach something on the project management side to the civil servants because they handle complex projects, they manage the resources; they have time-bound activities. Project Management plays an important role.

Every individual becomes a project manager at some point in time. Even in agriculture, you will require project management.

We can provide skill training to the civil servants on project management so that they can effectively manage the resources, manage the time and manage all the stakeholders.

What are your thoughts on the current scenario of unemployment in India?

There is no unemployment per se. If you ask any organization, what is the single-most challenge they have; it is finding the right people. Every organization wants to recruit people, but they want to recruit the right people. They don’t want to recruit just anybody and everybody.

They are focussed on getting certain skill-sets into the company. They don’t want to recruit just anyone and everyone. All the younger generations who are not getting employed has to do with what the industry wants. When you equip yourself with the skills that are needed by the industry, you are most welcome by the industry.

If you want to get recruited for what you already have, which the industry believes is irrelevant, then it’s not going to help. It is the responsibility of the employee to go back and prove every now and then that I am still employable. Then only the system will work.

Hence, it is important for engineering graduates to understand that they should have skills that are needed by the employer. They should be willing to travel. If they expect the employer to come to their doorstep, it is not going to happen.

Today, the middle-income group is getting richer and large family setups are becoming a family of one and two. On one side, the income is increasing while on the other side, the numbers of dependents are coming down. Therefore, parents want to provide all the comforts possible for their children.

In the process, the children are not willing to break their comfort zones. They want to take care of their future while living in their comfort zones.

What we communicate to the parents is that your responsibility as a parent is to prepare your children to live comfortably in your absence, not in your presence.

The children should be able to survive on their own so that they do not struggle in the future.

My advice to the children is to break from their comfort zone, learn the skills needed by the employer, and go to the place where the job is.

There are a huge number of migrated employees in the Middle East, the US, and everywhere across the globe. They have left their parents, families and gone to achieve their career goals. The next generation should also do that. If not in a foreign country, then within their own country, within cities, they have to move. When they start doing that, unemployment is not going to be a big problem.

As former President of India, Late Mr. Abdul Kalam said, in India, the problem is not employment but employability. The employability has to be improved to match the current requirement. Your skills may be outdated today that is not needed by the employer. You should be current and relevant, in order to get employed.

Employment is not a problem. Getting employable is the bigger challenge.