There is a reason Trainocate became the first Asian company to win the coveted Microsoft Worldwide Learning Partner of the Year Award in 2021. With over 25 years of experience, Trainocate is the largest IT and human capability development training provider in Asia. Dominating the market with a strong presence in the Asia-Pacific region, it operates in 19 locations across 14 countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, and the USA; and is expanding further. Trainocate has toptier partner status with leading vendors and organizations such as AWS, Cisco, CompTIA, DELL-EMC, EC-Council, Fortinet, Google, IBM, Microsoft, NetApp, Nutanix, Oracle, PMI, Pulse Secure, Red Hat, Rocheston, SAP, Trend Micro and VMware to name a few.
“Trainocate started its operations in Sri Lanka in June 2020, reaching out to the Maldives as well. Since our launch, Trainocate has trained the IT Teams and Tech professionals of leading organizations in Sri Lanka including John Keells Holdings, Brandix, MAS, Capital Maharaja Group, Hemas Group, Sri Lankan Airlines, Dialog, Standard Chartered Bank, Hirdaramani Group, and the Bank of Maldives”, says Mohamed Zafarullah Hashim, Trainocate’s CEO for Sri Lanka, Maldives & Emerging Markets, discussing the significance of bagging the Microsoft Worldwide Learning Partner of the Year Award.
Can you give us a brief overview of the company and its operations in Sri Lanka?
Formally known as Global Knowledge Asia, we rebranded in 2017 as Trainocate under the purview of Japanese ownership, headquartered out of Singapore. We function as the bridge between the vendors such as Microsoft, AWS, Google, and the partner, also the bridge between the partner and the customers. We do partner enablement programs for partners through the vendors and then from the partner to the customer.
A partner has to commit to the vision and the goals of a vendor. You also need to have the product knowledge and become certified, which is where we come in. We train the partners of our vendors as well as train customers of these partners. Microsoft has been our main force, and we have been providing free fundamental training sessions, as we believe that primary knowledge is key in building the country’s digital transformation journey.
How does Trainocate help businesses make the maximum of their software and technology platforms while improving their ROI?
Training is more or less an intangible asset. We aim to develop skills, competency, ability and improve employee performances and organizational productivity. Organizations spend millions in acquiring and upgrading systems or hardware and give truly little thought to the training process. As a result, a vast majority of companies do not make the maximum use of the features and benefits of the software in which they have invested. Proper training will increase your productivity and reduce downtime which will complete IT projects faster.
On a personal level, when you get trained and certified as an individual you also get the confidence to perform the task better. We have also introduced another tool called the Trainocate Assessment Tool (TAT) which allows organizations to assess their individuals, identify their competency level or any skill gaps. At the end of the day, this all adds to the dollar value. And that is what we think is the ROI for their investment.
Trainocate Holdings won the Microsoft Worldwide Learning Partner of the Year Award 2021. What is the significance of winning this accolade?
We had to compete with 4,400 entries and bagged the world number one position. It is the first time in history that an Asian company has won this award. I cannot put into words the pride and happiness that we feel as a company to be able to put Sri Lanka on the map. I took over Trainocate Sri Lanka and started the operations in July 2020. We are operating in 14 countries and Sri Lanka was the highest contributor towards this award. So that brings me immense joy, leading a team, having to go through this and turning things around in Sri Lanka and the Southeast Asia New market region.
How has the partnership with Microsoft impacted your growth, and how have you been able to help companies realise the potential of Microsoft products like Azure Cloud Services?
With Microsoft vision of “empowering others” engraved in our DNA, we are committed to serving our clients and bringing forth bold innovative ideas required to thrive in this era of digital transformation. Our focus is mainly on role-based training pathways which allow organizations to better utilize their existing cloud platform, may it be Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, Power Apps etc.
Azure is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centres. This technology helps organizations reduce costs, enhances security, and makes latency faster.
We have trained over 2,400 individuals, from July 2020 to June this year across Azure, Power BI, Data Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Virtual desktop and many more. We have trained about 1,300 individuals, this quarter alone (July-Sept, 2021) which includes the Learning Fest we conducted for any individuals from South East Asia and New Markets to join in for the fundamental session for FREE. These fundamental sessions are certification driven programs that allow individuals to choose their pathway more effectively.
With the pandemic being very uncertain organizations are adapting to digitally transform themselves. Trained professionals assist both Microsoft, the partner network and organizations to be able to bridge the gap between the ICT industry and ICT education by training individuals on tools already prevailing in the organization. We intend to build individuals who are job-ready and Azure Administrator, Solutions architect AI engineers and Power BI associates are the need of the hour. We believe that having a trained labour force makes the transition easier and secure.
When we train individuals and they familiarize themselves more with the product, it gives them more confidence in using the product and optimizing the same. It increases productivity for the organization, overall, it is a solution benefiting all stakeholders.
What is the secret to Trainocate’s successes, and what is your outlook for the future?
The secret to our success is empathy and wanting to make individuals much more skilled in what they do. A degree is amazing, but a certification along with a degree makes you get the job faster because you have the training.
We train on role-based pathways, following recommendations from our vendors. We have tried and tested these pathways and are confident in the outcome. I tell my team, we are not just a training company, but rather, a guidance company. We have been doing this for 25 years and have assessment tools that help us analyse and identify any skill gaps within organizations. We can use this to help the organizations’ HR and L&D teams streamline their training methods, as we can help identify these gaps and guide them on what they need the most.
Overall, we are helping organizations think differently, plan strategically, save money, and get the best out of technology. That is our secret to success.