Positivity give positive results

BRAND CONNECT

Published: May 14, 2019 06:04:40 AM IST

Updated: May 14, 2019 02:54:35 PM IST

S Karaidiselvan
Managing Director
CADD Centre Training Services
Years of experience: 26 years

Mr. Karaiadiselvan Saravanam hails from Kulamangalam Village, Tamil Nadu. He is the Managing Director of CADD Centre, Asia’s largest network of training institutes for engineering design software, and divisions like Dream Zone, Livewire, Synergy, and Dreamflower that are into niche training areas from IT, Project Management, creative skills to preschool education. He is a graduate in Industrial and Production Engineering from Malnad College of Engineering, Hassan, Karnataka and a postgraduate in Business Administration. He is a people’s person, who is interested in seeing people learn, earn, grow and lead a happy life. He strongly believes in teamwork and looks for long-lasting relationship with franchise partners and employees at all levels. These are a few qualities that have helped him achieve tremendous professional success and personal satisfaction.

Utilising his three decades of experience, he has authored two self-help books in Tamil: Vetri Nichayam Adhu Veda Sathyam and Ulluvathellam Uyarvullal. He also speaks at many academic and business forums across the country and abroad. He takes time off for mentoring entrepreneurs and guiding students in their career. He and his team train students and make them employable— they have trained more than a million students. They also train entrepreneurs and make their ventures profitable—they have groomed 1000+ franchises in 30 countries. As a business mentor, Mr Karaiadiselvan tries to accelerate the success of budding entrepreneurs by sharing knowledge, experience and insights into business modelling, organisational strategies, product development, and pricing, , among others. A travel enthusiast, he has travelled to more than 25 countries in the last 20 years. Outside work, reading is his primary hobby.

Life Lessons
• “I derive inspiration from various people starting from people we meet in our daily life. There are unique qualities in each one of us that inspire the other.
• As a student of life, I look forward to learn and draw inspiration every possible opportunity. My idols are real life heroes who have contributed / contributing to the needy.
• I get inspired by people who do not work for their need but for the needed ones. I never faced any struggles in life; I never had any problems either.
• I am a blessed one and life was blessed for me. I truly believe that the business challenges are not struggle and it’s the part of existence; sustained existence leading to growth.
• Any organisation or an individual aspiring for higher purpose must go through every possible challenge; transform it as an opportunity. I believe in being positive all the time; positivity give positive results.”

Charting The Path
Before joining CADD Centre, he had a brief stint with Ashok Leyland, as a trainee engineer. He became a part of the CADD Centre in 1992 and continues to remain a proud member of the CADD Centre family that is growing leaps and bounds. One of the first employees of the company, his first assignment was to teach CAD software to engineering students and corporate employees.

Since, he showed interest in business development as well, he was made the Business Head in 1995, when CADD Centre took the momentous decision of achieving growth through franchising. His responsibility was to evolve the franchising plan across Tamil Nadu and other south Indian states. He was promoted as the Director of the company in 1999 and made CADD Centre a multi-product training company in 2002. The company achieved close to 200 franchise centres in 2005. In 2010, he was elevated to the position of Managing Director and oversees all operations of the Training Business in India and abroad adding laurels to the Education Management Industry.

Challenges and Risks
At CADD, risks taken were aplenty but we did it to grow. In 1987-88, starting the AutoCAD training in India was a risk and franchising during 1995 was risky too as India was new to it and there were no unique franchise models. CADD Centre launching a unique, franchisee-centric, no-royalty business model and became successful.

Identifying opportunity
“Need is the mother of invention. We have always focused on the future. We preferred to be in a niche market than “me too” market.
We choose to be with our customer’s (franchisee) customer and we work on the future requirement of the customer’s customer; in our case it was employability. We keep monitoring the growth pattern of the employer and we prepare our students to meet the aspirations of the employer. This helps us to be always ahead of the market and our offering has the first mover advantage making us the dominant player and category leader.”

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