Enabling Business Success

Case Study: Lall Ondia

Lall Ondhia began a programme of modernisation four years ago. They have been hugely successful in integrating modern technology into their business without sacrificing the highly personalised service that makes their firm stand out.

• "Four years ago, Lall Ondia did not have a single computer. Now they are a fundamental part of all procedures"
• - Harsh Ondhia, Managing Director

When a company's working practices have been established over a long period of time, trying to bring in fundamental change can be a difficult process. CIPs helped Lall Ondia to bring about change in the most efficient way.

Four years ago, all the accounting work and communications within Lall Ondhia was done without computers, now "computers have become the norm". However, change can be difficult - Harsh Ondhia, a senior partner in the firm, explained that, "There was an initial psychological barrier to introducing computers, as there is with any major change. To get through this we made computer training available to all staff free for one year. It took four to six months for people to adjust, but suddenly everyone was hooked - they all started buying home computers and taking on additional training".

This has enabled the firm to respond more quickly and effectively to the demands of their clients. As Harsh puts it, "Email enables us to have a much quicker response rate. Within the service industry, response rate is the key - everyone wants a reply yesterday. We may not be able to give them a reply yesterday, but we can at least now get a reply out within the day."

According to Harsh, "Computers have led to a 50% increase in efficiency. This means that there is now a huge amount of time available for other things".

• - 20% of this additional capacity went towards improving working conditions in the form of staff holidays
• - 20% of the time went on providing additional IT training. This meant that 60% additional capacity created could be used developing new business

Even though two members of staff left to raise families, the company was able to absorb this loss with no reduction in service.

Harsh estimates that "the investment in computers paid off after just 18 months" of staff training.

All the firms staff have been trained to use computers and relevant software. Apart from some initial introductions, all the training occurs within the business, "I'm a great believer in training in the workplace rather than in classroom", explains Harsh, "staff training has to be tailored to your particular business".

By encouraging staff to share their skills, the training was completed in much less time that would be necessary using traditional methods. "I learned to use each of the packages myself first, then acted as a mentor to some of the other staff. They in turn trained more staff, so that it had a snowball effect".

Case Study: The Hospital Trust

Bespoke training for employers: The National Health Service is a good example of the College's partnership with employers, with entry and foundation level training through the NewCAD framework providing a stepping stone into the health service for many local people. Newham College works with the local Newham Healthcare NHS Trust to develop a modular approach to training with progression routes to all levels of study right up to Foundation Degrees and has recently undertaken an innovative initiative providing basics skills support to NHS employees at 33 hospitals in order to support their completion of essential work based qualifications.  In discussions to identify training options for the newly created post of Ward Housekeeper it became clear that none of the existing NQF qualifications were suitable as the job requirements cut across a number of NVQ's.The previous year the College's Building Services team, faced with a similar challenge, had successfully used the NewCAD framework to produce a tailor made programme for Housing Trust caretakers, developed and delivered in partnership with private training provider, Alpha Building Services Training Ltd. Local Housing Trusts had wanted to extend the range of practical skills that their caretakers could use. As with the Ward Housekeepers, they discovered that there was no single NVQ that would deliver the specific skills required.  

The Head of the Building Services team:
"This programme was a breakthrough. We learnt an enormous amount about the potential of NewCAD. We discovered that we could create NewCAD units that were very practical. For the Housing Trust employers, once the caretakers had acquired the skills associated with the units, it meant they would no longer have to call out specialist plumbers/electricians etc. to do simple maintenance jobs. The caretakers would be able to do the jobs instead. For the caretakers, it meant they could acquire the skills they needed quickly and with a minimum of fuss and the accreditation they gained meant they experienced a real sense of achievement."

A development team of college and hospital staff was established and immediately set about the sometimes complex business of, on the one hand, explaining hospital policies and procedures and the differences between wards and, on the other, outlining the detail of the NewCAD infrastructure.

The Hospital Trust Education and Training Manager:
"The existence of a dedicated programme appealed to the staff. They could see that the Trust was prepared to invest in them, which they valued. They also learnt to think critically about their roles and a valuable spin off of this has been that most are now beginning to think about their future career/professional development."

The Hospital Trust sees the NewCAD credit award framework as an ideal way to design and develop units for other new roles in the Health Service. For example, there will soon be generic health care workers who will work at new treatment centres. When they are appointed, they will need Level 1 and Level 2 skills in portering, office administration, customer care and health care assistance. A NewCAD unit can be produced for each of these areas of responsibility.

Kim was appointed Ward Housekeeper at Newham General Hospital in February 2003. She had previously been a Care Assistant for 12 years. She has recently completed the NewCAD Ward Housekeepers course.

"I wasn't sure about the Ward housekeeper job to start with. But the NewCAD course helped enormously because it encouraged me to think about the new job. It helped me work out what I wanted from it, what my staff wanted and, most of all, what the patients wanted.

The whole course felt as if it had been created just for us. It was written in plain English, easy to understand, easy to get to grips with. And nearly everything we had to do was relevant to the job unlike the Care Assistant NVQ I did some years ago.

What I found really helpful was the way the course brought out the things that I already knew, that were inside my head, and helped me sort them all out. I found myself writing down things I'd half forgotten and it prompted me to think carefully about every job before I did it - for a Ward Housekeeper this is very important."

Case Study: Savile Row

CIPs has played a major role in helping master tailors on Savile Row - home to the world's finest tailors - to make sure that new recruits have a standard of skills in place to be an asset to employers.

"Newham College's role is vital in ensuring that bespoke tailors benefit from new recruits who can earn them money, rather than costing them, due to a lack of skills." - Mike Bentley, director of business development at Skillfast-UK

It normally takes ten years to become a master tailor, as the specialist skills required take this length of time to learn.  Because only the finest, high quality cloth is used, tailors cannot afford to take on new recruits who don't already have a basic level of tailoring skills.      

The new Bespoke Pre-Apprentice Tailoring course requires students to study the basics of tailoring at Newham College - a Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) for Textiles Manufacturing and Design, before they are employed by a master tailor to complete their advanced apprenticeship.

Not only does the new course help students to develop their skills, it also means that tailors benefit from a new recruit who has a working standard of skills, and can therefore help in the production of garments.  As well as providing the training, Newham College also assisted in developing the course's content.

Martin Tolhurst, principal at the College said,
"I am delighted that we have been able to form this partnership with Savile Row as they represent the very best of bespoke tailoring in the UK.  The Foundation programme ensures that young people from Newham will get the best possible chance to move up to a modern apprenticeship in Savile Row.  This is also a very proud moment for the College, to be chosen to train people at the very top end of the fashion industry".


The Bespoke Tailoring Apprenticeship Programme has been developed after a report published by Skillfast-UK - the Sector Skills Council for the clothing industry - which said that there was no training course available to meet the exact training needs of bespoke tailors.

Gieves and Hawkes was one of the tailoring companies that played an instrumental role in the programme's development and the official launch was held at the company's Savile Row premises.