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Behind the Business with 360 GSP

Bdaily goes behind the business with Sher Syed, Founder and Managing Director of IT training centre, 360 GSP.

What does your organisation do?

360 GSP is an IT training centre based in Wembley, London. We have been in the industry since 2003, helping candidates to gain new skills, move into a better job and build a better life for their families. Nowadays, too many people are stuck in low-paid jobs with no real prospects of moving into more satisfying and better-paid work. 360 GSP is here to change their lives.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

“Brexit of course has been something that has caused a lot of uncertainty. Especially, in regards with how our business delivers training to European candidates. At the moment, they are not sure as how the UK government will be supporting going forward. However, 360 GSP is ready to face Brexit in whatever form it finally manifests. Another challenge is about graduates: more and more of them are coming out of university with the lack of all the required skills that the employers are looking for. It looks like we have to teach them not only technical abilities, but also the right attitude and other basic elements, such as research skills, presentation skills and time management.”

What is your biggest achievement over the past 12 months?

“In the last 12 months the company has grown tremendously and has been a chain of achievements that has contributed to the continued success of 360 GSP. We are now based in a prime location right next to Wembley Stadium, with excellent transportation links, plenty of car parking spaces, cafés, restaurants, gym and other amenities easily accessible 7 days a week. We also have facilities in Central London, we added more training courses on our portfolio, including Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, Digital Marketing and Web Development courses. Furthermore, it is always a pleasure placing our students with paid employment and some of the employers we have taken on board, including Condé Nast Britain, Joskos, Village School, QD Tech and Correct Group, have been a good indicator of how successful we have been with our whole business model.”

What is your most important focus for 2017, and what do you hope to achieve?

“We hope to expand our offerings around and outside London. We also aim to strengthen our online packages. We definitely see the digital tech industry as an area of growth, especially the demand we have for graduates looking to get into Digital Marketing, Web Development, Cloud, AWS and Microsoft Azure technologies. With the increased portfolio of courses and students coming to 360 GSP we are excited for the prospect of working with a significant number of new diverse employers”.

What excites you most about your industry and business?

“Basically, two things: this is an ever-changing business. It’s not stagnant for long and everything is changing rapidly. But something that really excites me is the fact that anyone who is interested in this sector has a realistic chance to get into employment in a reasonable amount of time - as opposed as maybe taking a traditional route going through universities. In fact, there are so many different avenues you can choose, such as apprenticeship, FE (further education), vocational training, government funded advanced learner routes, or if you are a graduate or professional who wants to change industry, they can change their career into IT in a relatively short period of time, compared to any other sector”.

What do you wish you’d known when starting out?

“I personally believe that if we had not gone through the 14 years of experience and learning, we wouldn’t be where we are today. So, that has been an immense contribution to our success, through the experience that we have gained. However, one trait that I wish I’d known when I started out is to work with likeminded individuals who are not only up to date with the current trends, but also have a keen interest about the upcoming technologies, so I could bounce my ideas off them in order to implement our strategies together.”

What will be the “next big thing“ in your industry, and how do you plan to handle it?

“I’m quite keen that the latest fad is going to be the IoT (Internet of Things). I think in the next 5-10 years it will really take off and the way we are positioning ourselves is by aligning our portfolio with industry recognised partners such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Cisco. So 360 GSP will be ready for that.”