Executive Summary
Eagle Education is an education-based company in Hong Kong, which provides the tutorial services for primary school and secondary school students. The idea of launching a tutorial centre was thought by two brothers, named Calvin and Matthew. They are the undergraduate students from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and City University of Hong Kong. This is the first time that the two brothers try to run a business, they want to write the business plan in order to seek the seed capital to launch the business.
Company Background
Eagle Education is an idea from Calvin and Matthew. Nowadays, the demand for tutorial classes has increased. Hong Kong education system causes students may have a burden on the study. There is a large number of students in one class at traditional schools, including primary schools and secondary school. Teachers cannot satisfy the needs of all students in one class, so the academic level of partial students may be low. Then, students may seek help from tutorial to improve the academic results, which causes the demand for tutorial need increases. According to a survey, there is more than 30 percent of students require a need for the tutorial class for different subjects. This situation makes the two brothers think that it will be a great opportunity to launch a tutorial centre.
Eagle Education has a special meaning in its name. Eagle is a kind of birds of prey, which has sensitive eyes. Besides, eagle usually stands for brave. Calvin wants his students to have a keen observation skill and be brave to face all the challenges. The name “Eagle Education” symbolizes power, bravery and victory.
Vision and Missions
Vision
The vision of Eagle Education is to explore students’ potential in different aspects.
Missions
Eagle Education aims to develop students ‘ interest in different subjects
We want students to understand that learning is not dull. We will use some methods to make students know that the subject is not difficult, so as to cultivate their interest. Our goal is also cultivating students’ self-improvement spirit.
Product and Services
Eagle Education offers two different ways for primary school students and secondary school students respectively. We would find out the learning needs of different students and understand their strengths and weaknesses, then we would develop a unique learning plan for different students. Since everyone is unique, students would have different personalities, we would not treat all the students in the same way. We would think about different teaching methods to meet the needs of different students.
For primary school students, we offer “Homework Tutorials” and “Specialist Courses”. First, “Homework Tutorials” means that students would stay at the tutorial centre and do their homework after class every school day. When students have any questions, they can ask our teachers immediately. Teachers would also help them revise for the dictation or quizzes. “Specialist Courses” are the courses focus on specific subjects. Our teachers would provide tutorials for students in specific subjects according to parents’ requests. We believe that teaching in small classes would result in better learning outcomes for students and it would be more efficient. Therefore, we would use the small class teaching model, the number of students per class is not more than eight.
For secondary school students, we offer a one-on-one tutorial. We would match the teachers who are good at the relevant subjects according to students’ preferences. We have teachers expert in different subjects. After entering secondary school, the curriculum is much difficult than the primary school, students may not adapt to the teaching progress of their classes, so we think that one-on-one teaching is very important. For the senior form students, we provide the courses focus on the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE). Our teachers would teach the examination skills in different subjects. As they all take good grades in the HKDSE, they are well familiar with the course curriculum and scoring criteria of the examination.
Market Analysis
At present, the market size of the tutorial market is very large. There are different types of the tutorial in the market, including tutorial centres and private tutoring. Both of them have different characteristics, advantages and disadvantages.
Now, we use the primary school market and the secondary school market for the analysis respectively. In the primary school market, most of the tutorial centres offer “homework tutorials”. The proportion of teacher and students is about one teacher to more than 10 students. In this way, the teacher cannot cope with the needs of all students. There may have a situation that several students ask at the same time in the classroom. Teachers cannot answer everyone’s questions at the same time, which would lead to some students being overlooked. The psychological quality of the students may deteriorate. They may think that the teachers ignore them. However, as we use the small class teaching model, teachers can be more convenient to answer students’ questions. The situation of several students asking at the same time will also decline.
Private tutoring means that one-on-one tutorial. Teachers usually go to students’ home and have the tutorial. The learning efficiency would be higher than going to the tutorial centre, but the cost will be relatively higher. The price for the homework tutorial class per month in the market is around $1800 to $2800, depends on different levels of students and the number of hours per day. The salary of a private tutor in the market is usually around $80 to $120 per hour, which is more expensive. Besides, the disadvantage of private tutoring is that students need to accommodate the schedule of the teacher. Teachers would not have time every day, then the students cannot have a tutorial every day. It is not convenient. In addition, if they have private tutoring every day, the tutorial fee will be a large burden of money.
In the secondary school market, the situation will be more complicated. Apart from private tutoring, tutorial centres also divide by large tutorial centres and small tutorial centres. Private tutoring and small tutorial centres are similar to the one in the primary school market.
The large tutorial centres are very popular today. The examples are Modern Education, Beacon College and King’s Glory Education. They use star tutors for promotion and the advertisements of star tutors can be found everywhere, such as transportation, social media, etc… Large tutorial centres are mainly focused on the public examination (HKDSE), which is in the form of “examination-oriented”. The star tutors use to teach the knowledge of the subjects, provide examination skills. They would also explain the contents of the examination that are not taught in schools, in order to fill the lack of school education. At the same time, they would give the past papers and additional exercises for students to practice.
Most of the classes in the large tutorial centres, especially the branches away from Hong Kong Island, Kowloon District, Tsuen Wan District, would use the method of “playing video” to have lessons. The star tutor would shoot video clips in advance in the live classes, and then the video clips would be made into a number of discs distributed to the branches, in order to reduce the workload of the star tutors. However, students would lose the opportunity to ask the teacher directly after class for the part they do not understand. Star tutors would provide the services of answering students’ questions on social networking sites for the students of the video classes.
Some of the large tutorial centres removed the walls between several classrooms on the campus. The classrooms were separated by glass, allowing students from several classrooms to attend the same tutor’s class at the same time.
In addition, these tutorial centres would also provide examination-related services, such as conducting the mock examinations before the HKDSE, to enable students understanding their deficiencies before the examination and familiarizing themselves with the examination. Speaking practices are another example. They are held to let students improve their speaking skills.
The fee of the tutorial class for one subject is around $500 per month in large tutorial centres. Although it is expensive, students would choose to have the tutorial classes since they want to know the examination skills and get a better result in the HKDSE. Some students attend the tutorial classes due to conformity. They follow their friends and attend the class together.
Marketing Plan
Our Target Market
Since our tutorial centre locates at Tsuen Wan Centre Shopping Arcades, our target market is the primary school students and the secondary school students of Tsuen Wan District.
Our Competitive Advantage
As the late-mover of the market, we enjoy the late-mover advantage. First, we can enjoy the “Free Ride” effect of the first mover. The late-mover may benefit from the process of research and development, which can save a lot of money than the starter. Second, the starter may use the wrong marketing strategy because of the uncertainty of customer demand. “Discontinuity” often lead to the wrong decision of the starter in the early stage of the market, the late-mover can learn these lessons from previewing the mistakes of the starter and no longer make the mistakes that the starter has ever made.
Marketing and Sales Strategies
4P
Product
Our products are the “Homework Tutorial” and “Specialist Courses” for primary school students and “One-on-one Tutorial” for secondary school students. They are the kind of tutorial service, which can let students acquire more knowledge.
Price
We plan the price of our courses is as followed.
Primary School
Homework Tutorial
(3 hours, every Monday to Friday) Primary 1 to Primary 2 $1800 per month
Primary 3 to Primary 4 $2000 per month
Primary 5 to Primary 6 $2300 per month
Specialist Courses
(2 hours, 5 days chosen by parents) Primary 1 to Primary 6 $800 per month
Secondary School
One-on-one Tutorial Junior form (S1 – S3) $120 per hour
Senior form (S4 – S6) $150 per hour
Place
We plan that the place of Eagle Education is at Tsuen Wan Centre Shopping Arcades, which is located at Tsuen King Circuit. There are two primary schools and three secondary schools nearby. Besides, there are many schools in Tsuen Wan, so our location will be convenient for the students to come.
Promotion
Our teachers are the friends and classmates of Calvin and Matthew. All of them are the undergraduate students of the eight UGC-funded universities majoring in different subjects, such as Finance, Social Sciences, Chemistry, etc. They had the experience of being a tutor and they all got a high grade in the HKDSE. Therefore, the quality of our teachers is guaranteed. We can use our expert teachers as the selling point for promotion. It would attract students to join our courses if our teachers have a high education level.
The other promotion is that we can print some leaflet and give the leaflet to the neighbourhood of Tsuen Wan Centre and the nearby district. We can have the 20 percent off discount on the first month to recruit new students.
We can also use the platform of social media, for example, Facebook and Instagram, to let other people know that there is a new tutorial centre. We can pay for an advertisement on Facebook and Instagram. The influence of social media is large and it may help us find more students.
Sources of Income
Our source of income is the tutorial fee of the students.
Sales Forecast
Although the competition is quite large, we would try to recruit new students in the available market. We expect that we would meet our breakeven point in the first half year.
Below is the sale projection for Eagle Education in the first three years.
1st year: $89,280
2nd year: $132,480
3rd year: $155,520
Payment Options
As we do not have the technology of credit payment, we only accept the payment of cash or