Tata Motors to train truck drivers in sales push

Want to sell trucks? Train the drivers first. Or so Tata Motors, India’s largest truck maker, seems to believe. The company is joining hands with quasi-government institutions, NGOs, truck distributors and training institutes to train drivers.

There is a severe dearth of skilled truck drivers in India, which is estimated to have around 5 million truck drivers today. The country has a high fatality rate and is the second-worst in the world in terms of truck accidents.

As per industry estimates, around 2 million drivers a year would be needed from 2014. Even if 50% of this is considered towards fleet replacement, an additional 1 million drivers would be required every year.

That’s a tall order, given that all the ITIs together produce barely 20,000 drivers a year today.

Tata Motors expects the move to help plug the void and spur sales growth for truck makers like itself. Its initiative alone will churn out 3.4 million drivers over the next ten years.

“To maintain the growth momentum of the industry we decided to take up this skilling initiative under CSR (corporate social responsibility). It will not only help the society but also the business in general,” said GS Uppal, industrial relation CSR administrative head, Tata Motors.

The first pilot for the project is due to begin at Jabalpur this month, followed by one at Ujjain.

The company plans to open at least 10 centres by the end of this year.

The exercise is likely to be keenly watched by others in the private sector as Tata Motors paves the way for a system where brand owners voluntarily become a part of skill development.

In many ways, the Tata Motors endeavour will do what is already being done by  Microsoft (Microsoft certified courses), Sun (for Java), Oracle (database courses and even the Oracle University), Cisco (router education) and IBM (DB2 and AIX courses).

As of now, no commitment has been proffered by the National Skill Development Corp to Tata Motors, but if the end result is in line with the body’s objectives, a partnership could be in the offing.

Besides, this could gradually be developed into a policy where each brand owner decides to convert one (or more) of the government’s ITIs into centres of excellence in India.

When brand owners promote their technology, it allows for better and more rapid skill development. Thus, a Siemens (or Schneider or Anchor) could be encouraged to promote courses for electricians, while Finolex (or Prince) could be certifiers of courses for plumbing and so on.

Tata Motors already runs a drivers’ training institute in Punjab. The centre, opened in 2009, offers an exhaustive one-year training programme for drivers.

The company is also in talks with Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh governments for setting up similar institutes.

“But we realised that the problem is so huge that this initiative may not be sufficient. We had to think of a different model, which is quicker and more cost-efficient. Taking this ahead, we worked on some new training modules with Ernst & Young,” said Uppal.

Tata Motors’ 45-day training programme, designed with inputs from Austrian driver-training firm Huber Ebner, will involve third party agencies — skill development agencies, NGO, etc — which will invest in the hardware, such as trucks and driving track.

According to Uppal, around nine agencies have shown interest in the project and the company has tied up with Avron Skill Development, Indigram, Be-Able and Ambuja Foundation.

Tata Motors will facilitate this training though its fleet operators and dealers, who will help in getting students. It is also in talks with large fleet operators who are facing a shortage of drivers.

To make the model sustainable, the 45-day course will charge a nominal fee. For the pilot project, a fee of Rs4,500 will be charged for training on light commercial vehicles and Rs7,500 for heavy commercial vehicles.

Tata Motors also plans to facilitate placement of trainees.
“We need a system that can produce at one lakh certified drivers each year, which is likely to go up to 5 lakh a year,” said a person associated with the skills development industry.

Ashok Leyland and Volvo are also training drivers. Ashok Leyland, in fact, has a large driving track near Ennore where it trains truck drivers. But these are small efforts yet, based in single locations.

“The need of the hour is to scale up quickly to 1,000 locations to start with, and take it up to 50,000 locations,” said the person, who did not want to be quoted for the story.

This would mean adopting franchisees who will promote the business in each state and sending the best drivers to a driving track where they can be tested for on-ground performance.

That’s just the model Tata Motors proposes to follow. It plans to announce an all-India franchisee scheme where investors will take part of the fees from each student and in turn provide the infrastructure and do the on-ground marketing to rope in students.

Much of the content delivery and simulation software could be through distance-learning systems (and possibly cloud technology). Within the Tata group, CMS is already doing this with around 80 odd centres, and VSAT connectivity is already being provided by TataNet, a division of Nelco.

Some four years ago, Tata Motors was also exploring whether it could become the outsourcing agency for the government to issue truck driving licences, said a source.

This may not have been cleared by the government because of legal reasons, but it is quite possible that drivers certified by the company will automatically get a driving licence. Also, these drivers may find easy acceptability, both in India and overseas.