Overseas call - Oceanic Consultants

The Tribune
Date: 27-Oct, 2010
A pleasing personality and people skills are the most important qualifications for
those wanting to surge ahead in immigration consultancy field. Charandeep Singh
chats up some prominent immigration consultants from the region to find out what it
takes to make it big in this field
Overseas call
YOUTH in the region have
always had fascination for
foreign lands. Thus it is no
surprise then that Punjab
alone counts for around 35 per
cent of the total
immigration to Canada from
India. Around 15,000 people go
abroad from Punjab every year,
whether for education or for
work purposes. In many
areas in the state whole
families have shifted base to
countries like Canada, USA and
the UK Sensing a business
opportunity in guiding people
through the cum bersome
immigration process, people
have started immigration and
overseas education
consultancy business.
The business is booming
as there are no restrictive
barriers or any regulating
authority. It is estimated that
t h e r e a r e a b o u t 500
immigration consultants
operating in Punjab alone.
The initiation
Starting an immigration
consultancy doesn't
require a huge capital
input, says Sukhmeet
Grewal, Senior Vice-President
of CANAM Consultants,
who has been in this field
for the past 13 years, and
his consultancy service now
has 20 offices in India,
besides an associate office
in Kuwait.
But running a
consultancy is not a
cakewalk. The field of
immigration consultancy is
highly regulated and the
people who manage the
show have to send reports
to the various affiliate
bodies for scrutiny. They
even have to give exams
for constant up -gradation
else their licences do not
get renewed. "I shifted to
Canada in 1987 and saw
that many people reached
Canada through ille-
For becoming an authorised immigration
consultant you need to be affiliated with CSIC
of Canada, IAA of New Zealand, and MARA
of Australia. Only authentic immigration
consultants are members of these bodies.
Then there is APIC (Association of Professional Immigration Consultants). There are
about 20 companies registered with it, and
before filing a case with any immigration
consultancy, people should check whether
the consultancy is a member of APIC or not
to avoid getting fleeced later on.
gal means even though
they fulfilled all conditions
for legal immigration. Lack
of right guidance caused a
lot of problems for these
immigrants. So in order to
guide people better and
through correct procedure
we started WWICS in
1993", says Col. B.S.
Sandhu, who is the CMD of
WWICS. His venture now has
700 employees in 20
offices across India and 10
offices overseas.
Consultancy business
largely functions on customer satisfaction and
most of the people who
run this business
staunchly believe that the
word-of-mouth publicity
from a satisfied client is
the best source of
publicity in their business.
"The immigration or overseas consultancy
business is very volatile,
because the rules and
regulations change on a
very short notice. So we
need to
COMMITMENT IS THE KEY
TO SUCCESS
Q. What do you have to say about the mushrooming of
immigration agents in this field?
A. See we don't have any restrictive barriers in the industry, so
whosoever wants to become an immigration consultant can
become one. Unscrupulous elements have crept into the
system which has given a bad name to the industry.
Q. Do you think that the immigration industry has lost a bit
of its sheen?
A. It has to some extent But that is why it is all the
more important now to have serious committed players in this
field. We are always looking for youngsters who are confident,
can win the confidence of clients and can keep track of any
changes in the rules and regulations.
Q. How do you maintain that quality is not compromised in
your organisation?
A. First we get our 'Performance Management done from Price
Water House Coopers. Then our organisation is very well
segregated with no two verticals having even an inch of a
common domain. So the brief or the KRA of every employee is
crystal clear. We started in 1996, and as of now we have about
200 employees on our payroll with 19 offices, including two
offices overseas in Melbourne and Birmingham.
Q. Do you see a growth in the overseas
education business?
A. For every established name in the
business the market size has diluted
as the industry size has not
increased but the number of individual players has increased. But the
industry is in a consolidation
phase and would go through
significant correction in times to
come.
Narash Gulati, CEO, Oceanic
Education Consultants
Continued on P2
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The Tribune
Date: 27-Oct, 2010
Continued from P1
diversify, and we need to train
our staff accordingly. Whosoever is
in a mode to adapt faster is
more successful in this field",
says Naresh Gulati, CEO,
Oceanic Overseas Education
Consultancy. Since the
immigration industry is highly
fragmented and the entry
barriers are quite low, a lot of
fly-by-night operators are there
who fleece people after
charging exorbitant amounts.
So credibility is a big issue in
this field and this is something
which a reputed consultant
can't afford to make a compro mise on. "Earlier people used to
charge Rs 6 lakh for an American visa; I have brought this
down to a mere Rs 20,000 and
that too through hassle -free
procedures. I secured 430
American visas in the last two
years itself," says Swati
Chaudhary, who runs an
i m m i g r a t i o n C o n sultancy
business by the name of
Careers Abroad.
Business model and
Jobs at consultancies
People skills are very important
for those planning to enter this
field. "We hire people with
abilities and train them; we
don't hire specialists. But given
a choice we hire people with
comm e r c e b a c k g r o u n d " ,
informs
Overseas call
Swati Chaudhary of Careers Abroad; (right) Col. B.S. Sandhu, CMD, WWICS; and (bottom left)
Sukhmeet Grewal, Senior Vice -President of CANAM Consultants Photos: Manoj Mahajan
Naresh Gulati.
Counselling has a very important role to play in the consultancy business, since people
make their decisions about
which course to follow in which
university, and also which
country they should try and
migrate to on the basis of
information provided by
counsellors. The counsellors
shape careers and future. A
counsellor has to have
thorough knowledge about the
various rules and regulations
and full information about a
par-
ticular country apart from having a compassionate and trust worthy attitude.
Counsellors should be abreast
of all the latest developments,
since many a time people come
with false information, and
the counsellors are
required to put their thinking
on the right track.
Each consultancy has its own
operational structure and career
growth depends on the system
of a particular consultancy.
"We have an absolutely flat
struc-
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tured organisation with proper
hierarchy in place. We have
branch managers, who head a
location, reporting to regional
managers who further report to
General Mangers. For
exceptional performers we even
organise all -expenses paid
overseas trips", says Grewal.
As consultancy business is
not scientific or technical, so
the candidates having good
interpersonal skills along with
people friendly attitude are fit
for this industry. Training
teams along
with case -filing teams form the
core of immigration consultan cies, so youngsters willing to
enter this field can become a
part of either of these. At the
time of hiring educational
degrees are not of that much
significance as the personality
traits. So a good pleasing personality is a sure shot hit for
those wanting to enter this
field.
"Ours is a very well structured and foolproof
organisation, where we give
more importance to people who
have grown organically with us.
Our Regional Manager Middle
East is a guy who is from the
ranks and was earlier our
Branch Manager at Chandigarh.
Apart from rewards and
recognition, we take care of the
career of our employees also",
says Colonel Sandhu (retd) of
WWICS.
"Though our organisation is
in the system for the past six
years only, we give a lot of
stress to client satisfaction. So
our staff is given extensive
training on this. We give an ID
to every client as soon as he
deposits our fee, and from there
on he can have access to the
movement of his case through
our portal only. One of our
centre heads is now in USA,
and is taking care of our
Masoning business over
there", says Swati Choudhary.