Executive Summary
This business case outlines a business report for the launch and the development of a new academic product in the coming years. This business case is by Pearson Education (India) for the undergraduate English Literature students of University of Delhi. It will propose the launch of a new mobile application for the students of University of Delhi, where they can have all the texts and their references and summaries in one place. It will focus on the target market with evidence and what are the opportunities of this new product among its audience. This report will analyze the market while mentioning its proper concept. It will also focus on business model and pricing and the revenue, which will be generated, and also, how this can grow in the coming years. I have decided to name the app “English Literature” so that the students can easily find it. It will only be accessible to the students and teachers of Delhi University with their student id and passwords as will be provided to them and if anyone other than the students and teachers of Delhi University wants to access them. If anyone else wants to subscribe, they need to login with the “others” option. The price for different people will be different. It is explained in Business Model and Pricing.
Introduction
Pearson is the one of the leading educational, academic and professional publishers in India and continues to grow. (Pearson, 2018)
Pearson India is undergoing global transformation where it is planning to expand into schools, higher education and vocational training. According to Deepak Mehrotra, managing director, Pearson, India:
“As a global organization, we are trying to change from a company which is focused around product to one which is moving towards digital and solutions. We want to focus around impacting learner outcomes and be accountable and answerable on the efficacy framework.” (Kalpana Pathak, 2015)
Pearson is working hard to provide quality products and services to its consumers and are planning to have a big leap which will focus on three dimensions: the schools vertical, higher education vertical and the vocational or professional training vertical. Mehrotra also said:
“Currently publishing is more than half our current business in India. When we talk about growth engines, we believe that a lot of publishing is going to transform through the digital learning route. Though publishing will continue to give us a healthy growth rate, which could be in double digits, the quantum leap would come from solutions, digital and some of its routes.” (Kalpana Pathak, 2015)
The University of Delhi [(also known as the Delhi University (DU)] is a public central university located in New Delhi, India. It is one of the largest higher education institutes in India and is among the largest in the world. It has currently 77 colleges and 5 other recognized institutes all over the city (University of Delhi, 2018).
Delhi University comes as the first choice of the students who complete their school education and want to pursue higher studies, as it is one of the best educational institutes in the country. It has a well-recognized faculty and offers hundreds of courses for different interests of the thousands of students. As it is a well-recognized university, getting an admission there is a bit difficult. The cut-offs for the admissions in various courses is continuously increasing from the past few years, which has increased the level of competition among the students.
BA (Honors) English is one of the most popular courses in Delhi University as many students opt for this course for their undergraduate degree in different colleges of the university. As told to The Pioneer by Gurpreet Singh Tuteja, who is the Deputy Dean of the Dean Student’s Welfare, BA (Honors) English is popular among students because of its eligibility as anyone, whether he/she is from science stream or commerce or humanities, can select this course as everyone has studied English in their school. (Rahiba R Parveen, 2016)
This report will study these students and give a detailed report of the app which will be in partnership with the University of Delhi for the students doing BA (Honors) English how this mobile application can help them with their course. This application will be for the benefit of the students as English in not the first language of many Indians and some of the books, which are taught in this course, are hard to understand for many students, specially the poetry and plays, as they are the classic texts written in the old English. It will have the texts and paraphrases and summaries for the all the three years syllabus of the course. This app will not only provide the text, but also the paraphrases of the hard texts and also the summaries of the plays and novels so that students can understand what the text is about. It will also have additional information about the writers for those who are interested in learning more and not only limit their knowledge to the texts.
IDENTIFYING THE MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
India is a very big market for educational books because of its population. India has the second largest population in the world. (Worldometers, 2018) India has a large number of students and it is predicted that, by 2025, India will be the country having largest student population. (Ellie Bothwell, 2015) Number of universities in the country has tremendously increased after the independence as people focus a lot on the education and with the growing population; government needs to have sufficient educational institutions. (Department of Higher Education, 2016)
Our target market for this product will be the student of the University of Delhi who will be taking BA (Honors) English course for their undergraduate degree. We will also be targeting the faculty of English Literature, as they will help us to spread our product to their students by recommending it to them and letting them know its benefits. Apart of this, we will also be targeting the students of different Universities and institutions undergoing the same course, as might have some of the text in their course as well which are set up for the students of University of Delhi. As this application will be launched in partnership with the University of Delhi, the subscription price for their students will be much lower as compared for those who are not doing the course from the mentioned university.
We will also target private tutors as it will be easier for them to get access to the material easily in one place rather than looking and subscribing for it on different websites or buying so many books for different texts of the same syllabus.
The company is planning online, distance and blended learning models for the higher education so that the services can be offered in a big way. Pearson already has some of these things globally but Pearson India is taking steps so that these services can also be offered in India. The company is also focusing on higher education to make students ready for college and employability. Giving an example, Mehrotra said, “When you see commerce graduates today, the ability of them getting picked up by companies is limited. We are thinking, can we help this through soft skills and giving structured courses which will enable them find their fit. We are working on a bouquet of programmes, some with international accreditation or international universities being offered in a pretty affordable manner.” (Kalpana Pathak, 2015)
I think that the perfect time for launching this app is within two years as it can grow more and more in the future with different courses on it. As more and more students are inclined towards opting the English Literature course, it will have more and more subscription as students want quality products and nothing will be better than having everything you need in one place. We are aiming towards:
• High quality products.
• Products, which are easily accessible.
• The products, which can be easily downloaded on their phones or any other electronic device.
We are aiming for the app and not print books, as they are costly and hard to carry around. One book cannot have an entire syllabus with everything in it and will require multiple books, which the students will not be able to afford and therefore, will not be feasible. Whereas, the subscription of this app will be a lot cheaper and will be student friendly and have chances of more success as compared to the physical books.
CONCEPT DEFINITION
The idea is of this product is to reach a wider audience and give easy access to the students of the University of Delhi who are pursuing BA (Honors) English as sometimes it is hard for the students to find the books which are in their syllabus. Sometimes the books are not affordable by the students and if students can afford them, they cannot get their hands on them as they are out of stock. There are always separate books for the texts from the books, which have paraphrases, and summaries (reference books), which help the students to understand the text. Buying different books for a single text does not seem feasible sometimes and can be resisted by students as they cost too much and affect the studies of the students.
Our main objective with this product will be to provide our customers everything they need in relation to this course in one place and they can refer to either the full texts or their summaries or whatever they need. It is distinctive as none of our competitors have something like this. Local publishers have reference books but they do not include texts and are not of good quality as many mistakes can be found within the work, and they are print books. We will be the first ones to launch a product like this and our plus point is that we will be doing this in the partnership with the University of Delhi.
We also want to be go environment friendly by launching a mobile application as students have to buy 3 text books for a single module and then 3 reference books for the same module. This leads to so much waste of paper and is not economical for the college going students who are still dependent on their parents. Also, many of these books are pirated and the quality of the books cannot be ensures. We will ensure the quality of our product to provide the students with whatever they need for their degree.
MARKET ANALYSIS
Our consumers are thousands of students who enroll themselves in the BA (Honors) undergraduate degree every year in the University of Delhi as full time students. As there are above 100,000 (Heena Kausar, 2017) student applying for the course as regular students, not all get admission as there are very few seats for the course, they enroll in other universities or get admitted in the part-time or distance learning course. Everyone enrolled in the Delhi University, whether he/she is a regular student/ part-timer/ distance learner, everyone has the same syllabus. Our consumers will also be the professors of this course, as they also need to refer texts in order to teach. The students from different universities who offer this course will also be our target audience because they will be having some of the similar texts that will be in the syllabus of the Delhi University’s course.
There are many reference books which are already in the market by different local publishers but the quality of the books are not that great. You can find grammatical mistakes in the texts and sometimes the paraphrase don’t make sense. The books with the main texts are good but students have to buy different books for the same texts, as the books are different for referring and for the texts. There are some sites like sparknotes, where summaries are available but they are very brief and do not cover the entire text, and also, not everything in the syllabus is available there.
Our product will be different as no one has everything available at one place and we will be having everything, from poetry to their paraphrase, and dramas to their summaries and themes, in one app, at one place.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ASPECTS
Intellectual property rights will be with the company but the Professors of English Literature will create it. The authorship rights will be divided into two aspects- moral and economic. Economic rights will be with the company and the moral rights will be with the authors of the content. The writers of the content will be paid once and will not receive any royalties on it. There will be no licensing of intellectual property on this product.
As we have associated technology with our product, we need to protect it from the harms of being hacked or getting it protected from the third party if they try to exploit it. We need to get associated with a company, which will protect us against any technology related infringements.
PARTNERSHIP/COLLABORATION ASPECTS
Pearson will launch this product in a partnership with the University of Delhi as it is one of the leading universities in India and has so many aspiring students because of its reputation and faculty members. We will also collaborate with the renowned professors of English literature who will help with the paraphrasing and summaries of the dramas, novels, poems, etc. We will also contact the international professors to ensure that the quality of the products is up to the standards of Pearson.
Mobile applications are the medium to connect with your customers and for creating a high quality app, we will need to collaborate with a company who know what they are doing and have an amazing team to help us with this. One such company is “Techahead”. They have “decades of combined experience, fluency in several coding and programming languages, and deep knowledge of OS requirements. Their approach to development creates stylish apps that work seamlessly across devices and networks. At the same time our results driven processes make every investment timely and cost-effective.” (TechAhead, 2018)
We believe that Techahead can help us in creating a problem free app and ensue its quality and make sure that our customers easily access it.
BUSINESS MODEL AND PRICING
Our business model will be a digital product. It will be a mobile application which will include almost all the study material needed for the students of BA (Honors) English and will be easy to access. The app itself will be free to download but it will have a subscription rate and the prices will vary from people to people and the plans people are opting for. Students and the faculty of the University of Delhi will have to pay INR 199 per month or INR 1799 for the annual subscription, where as the students of different universities or someone else who want to access the app will have to pay INR 399 for a monthly subscription or INR 3699 for the annual subscriptions.
REVENUE PROJECTIONS
Our total revenue generation monthly is estimated to be INR 6 million.
As it is hard to say how many people will adopt the app in its starting months, we are hoping to generate INR 10 million in the initial years. As more and more people will know about the app, they will start subscribing it. Teachers will recommend them and students will adopt it for their studies which will help us in boosting our revenues. We are not only dependent on the students and faculty of the University of Delhi, but also the students and teachers of other universities having the same course. We are also targeting the students who are doing the course as part-time or as distance learning and it is a big market as there are so many students from these markets who are in the Delhi University and also other universities.
Income Stream Estimated Revenue generated per month (Initial Stage) (in INR)
Delhi University Students (Regular) 19,90,000
Delhi University Students (Part-Time and Distance) 13,93,000
Students from other universities 23,94,000
Faculty of Delhi University 5,970
Faculty of other Universities 11,970
Other customers 9,975
(Please see Appendix 1)
The estimation is made on the basis of people subscribing monthly as we are aware that everyone wants to see the quality first and therefore test it before paying a lump sum. Number of students and people taken vary in every category based o or estimations. (For the customer details, please see appendix 2)
The profits will be divided between Pearson and the University of Delhi as we will be in a partnership with and they will partially sponsor us. The division of the profits will be 70% and 30%, where 70% will be with the Pearson as they are doing all the work.
ESTIMATE OF INVESTMENT
Our total investment in this project will be approximately around INR 8 million.
It will be a one-time investment as it is a mobile application. We don’t need to invest in printing machines or colors or paper, etc. As the University of Delhi will be in partnership with us, they will be partially sponsoring the app too. We need to invest in the creation of the application, storing the data in one app, professors who will be helping with the summaries and paraphrases and other other quality and learning material. But we will need to invest in maintaining the good quality of the app on the regular basis and upgrade it whenever necessary.
The cost of developing a mobile app depends on various factors, like the design, the target audience, etc. Acquiring the rights of the texts will not cost us almost all the texts are available in the public domain as they are the classics.
KEY CHALLENGES AND RISK ASSESSMENT
For the key challenges and risk assessments, we have decided to do a SWOT analysis, as it will be more helpful in figuring our strengths as well as analyze our vulnerability.
Strengths
• It will be the first product of this kind in the market for a specific course.
• Includes texts as well as helping material for all the three years of the course.
• Pearson is a trusted brand and will ensure good quality.
• It is more feasible and economical for students. Weakness
• Mainly associated with the University of Delhi and not other universities in Delhi.
• Restricted to one city.
• It has a monthly subscription rate and cannot be accessed without it.
• Data limited only to the students associated with undergraduate English degree.
Opportunities
• We can grow it by collaborating with other universities.
• Launch it with the students, which will make them aware of the product.
• Target other universities, as much of the syllabus is similar.
• It is a low price subscription. Threats
• Change of the syllabus in the coming future.
• Competition with local publishers.
• Threat from other websites providing free material.
• Physical books and local publishers.
NEXT STEPS
Our next step will be to associate with other faculty members of different courses and launch similar products for them so that the other students can also benefit from our products. We will also collaborate with the top ranked universities of Delhi for their students and produce a necessary product for them. We don’t want to limit our reach to only one city but also want to go nation wide for which we will do market research for different cities of India and contact different universities and understand their requirements and make our business broad in the future.
Conclusion
To conclude this report, we believe that our business model is new and unique in this market. We only have local publishers as our competition and they are not reliable. We need to introduce new methods of study in India and also need to develop our company.
As Mehrotra said, “We are fairly excited with what we have chosen; the goals we have set are fairly aggressive. We would probably, attempt to be the largest education and learning company in India by 2020.” (Kalpana Pathak, 2015)