National Institute of Electronics signs pact with Snapdeal

National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), on Thursday, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with e-commerce giant Snapdeal to roll out digital marketing courses, aimed at helping small and medium business and artisans wanting to take the online route to become entrepreneurs.

“We are trying to build skills. This MoU will help widen participants’ business prospects by teaching them the nuances of using online space to market and sell their products, thus eliminating the need for middlemen/brokers,” NIELIT Managing Director Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma said.

The digital marketing courses will help the trainees understand the fundamentals of digital marketing and effectively utilise the online sales channel. As a knowledge partner, Snapdeal will provide inputs on the course and will facilitate industry interactions for the participants.

“We have a lot of understanding of the e-commerce space. We have learnt a few things and know what it takes to become successful as a seller on an ecommerce platform. We want to create one million successful online entrepreneurs in India because in the success of these small businesses lies our success,” Snapdeal Co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl said.

He added, “We want to create a lot of high quality content that will encourage an individual… he would know that if I study this course and get certification, my ability to be successful in an ecommerce platform is much more.” To begin with, the course will be launched in six centres — Srinagar, New Delhi, Aurangabad, Kolkata, Calicut and Chennai.

Alibaba

NIELIT is also exploring to add more value to its digital marketing course, and is scouting for such proposals with other players as well. Mr. Sharma said Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba had also evinced interest to partner them for the program.

The course will be divided into three levels — basic (60 hours), intermediate (90 hours) and advanced (120 hours). It will include practical training on cataloguing, IT skills and social media tools required for selling online successfully.