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Conclusion 24
References 25
The days when coaching classes were synonymous with an individual running a
small tuition centre in his home are long gone. The teacher used to charge an amount
close to Rs. 500 per month and teach 3-4 days in a week. However a major
transformation was seen when businessmen actually started looking at it as a
financially interesting career option.
The expansion of the old form of coaching has been profound. Strategic
business knowledge is now increasingly being used to gain competitive advantage
by different coaching centres and slowly the industry is starting to become an
organized one. Currently the coaching centre industry in India is worth Rs. 10,000
Crore.
In this project we have studied the structure of coaching centre industry of India. We
have analyzed the major players in this industry and have performed a detailed
analysis on “Career Launcher” which is arguably the biggest player in this industry
currently. We have then tried to have a look at the involvement level of career
launcher in ICT based applications.
An analysis of how they are using ICT for strategic advantage has also been
performed. We have used data obtained through Interviews to study the impact of
ICT on these organizations. We have also used internet as a resource to obtain some
important data to complete the analysis.
The severe competition makes even the best of the students feel the need of
professional help. Even the parents do not hesitate paying huge amount of money to
these institutes since they realize that they are making an investment that can prove
decisive for the child’s future. Right now there are coaching classes available for
almost all kinds of competitive exams.
Coaching centres are making a foray into diverse fields ranging from board exams -
school tuitions - IIT JEE – Medical - Management et al. There has been an increase in
the interest level across various income and educational levels to get into the best
possible institutes India has, to get a satisfying and ‘high returns’ career. The
organized part of the coaching centre industry has, as of now, eight major players –
Career Launcher, IMS, TIME, Brilliant Tutorials, FIITJEE, Pie Education, Raus’s IAS
comprising of 20% of the market.
Some of the following figures are astounding and prove the fact that coaching centre
industry without a doubt has a lot of potential:
We have selected Career Launcher as the subject matter for analysis in this report.
Career Launcher strives to enable people to realize their potential and make their
dreams come true. Its primary focus is on the students’ needs, and treats technology
as a key driver. CL has put a strong team in place to ensure that its targets are met.
The day-to-day functioning of the company lies with the co-founders and a strong
team of professionals from IITs and IIMs through a structure consisting of “business
councils” and their “anchors”.
Career Launcher had initially been funded by Intel Capital, and now by Gaja
Capital. Career Launcher has a subsidiary in the US (CL USA) and is planning a
footprint across Asia. In fact, its plans to go for a public listing to raise funds have
been postponed only due to the recent state of the markets.
T.I.M.E. has a presence with 197 offices in 102 cities across the country. T.I.M.E.
offers training for national level exams like the CAT, NIMCET, IIT-JEE, AIEEE, etc.,
as well as exams like the ICET in Andhra Pradesh, the Maharashtra CET, and other
local exams in different states. T.I.M.E. also offers training for international tests such
as the GRE test, the GMAT and the TOEFL iBT.
Besides an expansion in its product portfolio, the company has also grown as an
organization. Today T.I.M.E. has over 2000 full-time employees in its Faculty,
Research, Management, Marketing & Administration teams.
T.I.M.E. believes in letting its results do the talking with 1000 of its students who
were part of its flagship program making it to the IIMs. The last few years have been
financially rewarding with T.I.M.E. achieving an impressive brand turnover of Rs.
200 crores and growing at a CAGR of over 55% for the last 5 years.
IMS India provides help to students right from career counselling to coaching classes
for major entrance tests like CAT, GMAT, GRE, MCA and all State Level
Management Entrance Tests including group discussions and personal interviews.
IMS believes that its primary focus is its student, trust their primary concern and
career building their job which involves mentoring, motivating and guiding all
those who interact with them.
Group PT’s revenues are poised to cross Rs.40 crores this fiscal. They foresee
themselves as a quality education corporate, that would be worth at least Rs 250
crores by the end of this decade, delivering quality services to students around the
globe through a mix of online and off-line delivery models.
In the initial stages, the industry was a fragmented one with private tutors being the
major players and commanding the maximum amount of respect. However, with the
advent of competition reaching dizzying heights and population explosion not
helping the cause, the coaching centre industry is finally starting to realize that it is
important to bring in strategic management principles in order to remain profitable
in this highly competitive business environment where there is a coaching institute
available in every nook and corner of the city.
Major players like Career Launcher, IMS, Time and others work at their own level in
big cities and in order to capture the market in smaller cities franchise system is
followed. An example of such a system is prevalent in a city like Dehradun. When
Dehradun became the capital of Uttarakhand, it resulted in the opening up of many
engineering and other professional education institutes. This further led to setting
up of coaching institutes like CL, IMS, TIME etc, who set up their franchisees in this
city to promote their brand. Time coaching Institute, for example, is primarily driven
by the franchisee model and currently it has about 90 learning centres in 59 cities.
- Intense competition
Setting up a coaching centre does not require a huge capital outflow initially. The
primary reason for this is the fact that there are economies of scale. One does not
need to own a fixed infrastructure initially. A class can be started by renting a room.
Customers in case of coaching institutes are students. The students are one of the
most important entities in this industry. A student would be willing to choose a
coaching institute on the basis of two basic qualities – Quality of teachers and the
course content and the cost that they are paying for it. The cost that the student has
to pay for the entire module is very much decisive in determining whether a
customer prefers one institute over another. A difference of even thousand rupees
can force him to think about other such institutes. For a student switching from one
institute to other is not costly both in terms of money and in terms of course content,
since the major entrance exams have similar syllabus. Hence a customer would not
be overtly disappointed about switching from one institute to other provided he is
getting a good deal. It also depends upon the customer loyalty factor. If my cousin
joined Time coaching institute and he made to an IIM, chances are I would also
prefer to go to time rather than any other coaching centre.
A large number of private tutors are present in India. Some of them are
exceptionally good teachers. A student who can afford private coaching is highly
likely to opt for a personalized form of coaching where the teacher is only teaching
to him and nobody else at the same time. Thus the student can try to gain a lot more
than what he could have had he gone to a class of 30-4- students. Another form of
coaching could be through correspondence. People living in remote areas prefer this
over travelling for 2-3 hours to attend a class. Also there are few coaching centres
trying to focus primarily on imparting education through online mechanisms. All
these are alternatives to classroom coaching and hence serious candidates for
substituting it.
The major suppliers for this industry are stationery providers and the teaching
community. Stationery suppliers do not have a lot of muscle since there is an
abundance of such suppliers and if one overcharges, can be easily replaced by the
other. However the teaching community can be seen as a supplier as well and a
professor who is very famous and actually admired by students highly, can
command a big price in the market and hence has a high bargaining power.
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Porter’s Analysis of the industry has been shown below:
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5. Critical Success Factors (Must have’s / do’s for Coaching centre industry)
John F. Rockhart says “There are things that your organization must do right if you
expect to survive in the future. These critical areas require constant care and
attention on the part of management. Critical success factors for any business are the
limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure
successful competitive performance for the organization."
From the Porter’ five force analysis, we find that they are strong with the industry
being extremely competitive. We believe that for a coaching firm to be successful in
this industry, it is exceedingly necessary for it to differentiate itself with high quality
offerings but at the same time be extremely price competitive.
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High quality content creation is the key – The course material that is
provided to the students’ plays a pivotal role in determining their preparation
level for the exam. The better the quality of the content the higher the chances
of the student being ready for the exam day to handle the questions being
asked. Measures include the number of students enrolling for content access,
and student feedback ratings.
Location of the Institute – An institute located far off, where not a lot
of people would be willing to go for coaching is of no strategic importance
since it would not be able to attract students. It is important that a centre is
opened near a place from where it can be sure to get maximum possible
enrolments. An example of this strategy these days can be seen in how
coaching centres open their branches very near to an engineering college from
where it expects a lot of customers. Measures include the number of students
in each new centre.
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6. The importance and scope of ICT in this Industry
From the Critical Success Factors identified for a firms’ success in the industry, we
realize that ICT can play a major role in each of them: attracting the best faculty and
students, generating high quality content, deciding upon location, price cutting as
well as offering customized services.
# We have identified the various ICT applications that could be used by a firm in
Coaching centre industry:
- Training system for conducting training for its franchisees and faculty across the country.
- Distance learning through Video conferencing to reach remote locations in the country
instead of having a fully fledged centre.
- Performance management system to decide on the various incentive mechanisms for its
employees. Feedback, taken from student feedback system, could be an important criterion.
- Information system is a system used for storing, retrieving, transforming and disseminating
information in an organization. It can be used by coaching centres to communicate with their
students, be it change in class timings or inform them of their results.
- Intelligent data mining can be employed on the student performance to conduct an analysis
and identify their strengths and weaknesses based on which modules can be suggested to help
them improve on their performance.
- Social networking website having profiles of students wherein they could form their own
groups and share and recommend any useful information.
- Student Boards accessible for all its students across the country wherein they can post their
queries and get help from other fellow students.
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High quality content creation is the key
- Knowledge management is process of capturing and making use of a firms’ expertise
anywhere in the business. In Coaching Industry, it is an extremely essential system required
for capturing question bank, course material, current affairs, past student experiences, etc
- Intranet is a private computer network that to securely share any part of an organization's
information or operational systems within that organization. It can be used by employees for
interaction and collaboration on creation and improvement of courses.
- Media development software to develop lessons which are more fun and interactive for your
students.
- Presentation software required to display information and construct slide for conducting
classes.
- Collaborative software to help in content generation by bringing faculty members across the
country to share information. E.g. Wikis, email
- Geographic information system integrated with student information system to take decisions
on where to open the next centre
- Workflow system to ensure faster and glitch free business processes. A coaching firm can
utilise it to register students conveniently and content creation by information transfer
between its different teams.
-Online Enrollment System is a web based system for students to browse classroom locations
and select courses and enrolls by paying their fees using a credit card.
-Accounting software to record the various financial transactions that occur across the firm.
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Customization of offering
- Feedback system to get the feedback of the students on the various courses being taught to
them, the faculty and the course material offered helping them better orient themselves for
satisfying student needs.
- Scheduling software to allot batches for each student based on his requirements and to
schedule faculty time table accordingly.
- Mobile-IS integration to send important information to students on their mobile phones. E.g.
as soon as there is an unexpected change in the class schedule send an automated message to
the student
- Career counselling service to help students decide on a future career path. This would
involve asking him to fill a form based on his interests followed by an aptitude and
personality test.
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7. Current state of ICT in Career Launcher
Career Launcher strongly believes that it is the technological edge that differentiates
it from any other coaching centre in India. It has helped them in scaling up their
business more conveniently. Also, it recently invested $1 million in 361 Degree
Minds, a Chennai-based research and technology-driven company to improve
technology, bring out new programmes, go-to-market strategy and research.
Career Launcher's technology team has deployed in-house solutions built on the
latest technologies across all of its centres. Some of the key IT initiatives are
About the software: “very resourceful. Even if I miss a class, I can view the tutorial videos. It
works as a back-up. The test is online which is almost in sync with the CAT format.”
“Even people with very little experience of working on computers can understand it without
much hassle.”
“I like the alert system. Keeps me up-to-date and helps me brush-up all the basics.”
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Mr. Naveen Saraf, Branch Head and Faculty - CL, Park street Kolkata, mentioned the
following:
“Absolutely, in love with the software. Works for me very well. My students appreciate the
way, this software has been designed.”
“My tutorial videos are uploaded as soon as the classes are over. My students can take
references whenever, wherever they want.”
Figure: Displaying the welcome screen, note: the mailing system and latest
announcements
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Figure: eLib providing links to various video and e-materials
Workflow System: Career Launcher enables its content development team with an
Advanced workflow management system for managing the entire content
development effort involving over 100 authors, editors, language experts, proof
readers, and quality assurance team members. The workflow system also serves as
content repository and is capable of handling various document formats.
CLzone: Career Launcher has developed a portal for its employees that tells them
everything from their salary break-up, HR policies, their leave status and so on -- all
confidential and online.
“It’s simple, convenient and easy to use. We also have something called ‘anniversary’
updates. So we can wish friends in other offices.”
“I love the simple interface. Payroll system etc are not that complicated to use. I can check my
payment date at the click of a button.”
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Prepzone: Popularly known as 'The Hive', Prepzone is the Career Launcher student
forum dedicated to MBA test preparation. It is an exclusive area for MBA aspirants
to get the latest news on B-school announcements, entrance test tips, resolving
academic queries or exchanging preparation strategies with other aspirants.
Online Enrolment System: A web based system for students to browse classroom
locations and select courses and enrol by paying their fees using a credit card.
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CL Management system – (Enterprise Resource Planning): An integrated solution
developed in-house that helps CL maintain information about students, courses,
pricing, payment collection, scheduling of classes, and customer inquiries. The front-
end applications have been developed in Java Swing with Oracle 8i as the database.
The ERP uses advanced database replication methods to organize nationwide
customer data.
Mr. Satya Narayanan, the chairman of Career launcher was quoted as saying the
following on a website:
“It is the strongest bond between the head office and the centres all over the country. New
admissions in Guwahati, the financial position in Dehradun, material requisition from Pune,
it's all a click away.”
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7.2. Enabling Education Delivery via Satellite and Internet Technology
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VOIP Technology: Career Launcher gives its students in remote the benefits of
participating in live classroom sessions from their homes or a cybercafé. The best
faculty on any topic can make available the recordings of their sessions, which can
be downloaded and heard at any time of the day. VOIP allows for two-way video
and voice, allowing hundreds of individual students to participate and learn
together from the very best faculty on the subject.
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8. Conclusion
Only about 0.7% of all students who take the combined admission test (CAT) make
it to the IIM’s. Mindboggling figures such as these force the parents and students to
leave no stone unturned in the preparation for such tests both in terms of fees and
hard work.
Career launcher pays close attention to ICT tools and techniques & it is
technology driven.
Develops in-house ICT applications for cost cutting. This is made possible
because of a strong IT team
After CAT became online it had a major advantage over its rivals since it was
somewhat prepared for this eventuality already
Stupendous spending on ICT infrastructure is expected to pay CL rich
dividends in years to come
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References:
www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com
www.businessworld.in
www.careerlauncher.com
www.time4education.com
www.pteducation.com
www.expressindia.com
www.hindu.com
www.news.mba4india.com
www.business-standard.com
www.rediff.com
www.livemint.com
www.rsatya.in/
www.slideshare.net
Interviews were conducted with
o Mrs. Sapna Ludhani, Faculty-VA, Career Launcher, Delhi
o Mr. Naveen Saraf, Branch Head and Faculty - CL, Park street Kolkata
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