Today, professional services firm, Deloitte, together with Tlhakano Technology Solutions, a black empowered information and communications technology (ICT) company, launched the Deloitte Academy, an innovative project that identifies previously disadvantaged and unemployed IT graduates and trains them up to become enterprise resource planning (ERP) specialists in order to meet market demand for these services.
Companies with production or manufacturing operations, eg factories and production plants, usually use the services of an ERP specialist and the shortage of these skills exists not only in SA but around the world.
"According to research company Gartner, the need for ERP specialists in the business process outsourcing (BPO) and application management outsourcing (AMO) arena will need to grow by 18% by 2008 in order to serve organisations in Europe, Middle East and Africa alone," says Andre Hugo, Head of Deloitte Academy.
"The required skills shortage can be filled by IT graduates in SA. Research conducted in the Western Cape alone revealed that there are over 7 500 graduates who fit the criteria set forth by the Deloitte Academy for successful entry into the programme," adds Hugo.
The two firms believe their combined experience in this market will ensure the success of the project where others have failed. Deloitte ran a similar course in Australia for five years with enormous success. It believes this has equipped the company with the experience and know-how to implement the programme in SA with complete confidence. Tlhakano Technology Solutions, which conducted a similar ERP training programme last year in line with SETA learnerships, will also provide its experience and lessons learnt, as well as some of the graduates.
The programme - which will run over 18 months - will begin with an initial 30 delegates then followed by another 45 in the next six months. Training will be conducted by top Deloitte professionals and specialist lecturers from business. The students obtain on-the-job training and are guaranteed employment after qualifying either within Deloitte`s growing BPO and AMO business, Tlhakano or with Deloitte clients.
Similar courses have been offered by other institutions but they have not been sustainable, primarily because the graduates worked on a project by project basis. With the Deloitte Academy, graduates will work on annuity business, which is one of the reasons employment can be guaranteed.
A unique element of this course is that it is both theoretical and practical, offering graduates soft skills training as well as consulting and business knowledge and experience. One-third of the trainees will be deployed at various companies (clients) and two-thirds will remain under the Deloitte mentorship.
Once the programme is completed, Deloitte clients have a choice of retaining the students, with the main benefit to clients being that the trainees will already be familiar with their business and company culture. Knowing our track record, a number of our clients have already shown a key interest in hiring these graduates permanently upon completion of their training.
"Through this programme, Deloitte saves companies time in terms of training but it also removes the risk from companies. Furthermore, this ERP training has the potential to assist companies battling with their employment equity targets in this sector," says Hugo.
"This project is in line with national objectives of skills development, promotion of equity at the workplace and to some extent poverty alleviation. It will go a long way to support goals of transformation, through its focus on competency and capacity creation," added Hugo.
The project is also in line with Deloitte`s own transformation policy. Instead of merging with another BEE company in order to fulfil the requirements of transformation, Deloitte has instead developed its own programmes within the firm to foster black leadership capability from within. The Deloitte Academy is no different, given that some graduates will remain with Deloitte.
Potential trainees are reached through newspaper advertising, road shows and by word of mouth. Interested candidates then go through a rigorous selection process, which is followed by training, after which the graduates will be competent in the area of Business Consulting Practice ERP NQF 5.
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