M V Sainath

Date: 10th June 2020 Submitted by: M V Sainath,- Table of contents 1. List of features and content information…….1 2. Assessment…………………………………………………4 3. Pricing strategy…………………………………………..4 4. Problems faced by customers……………………..7 5. Sales strategies……………………………………………8 6. Financials of companies………………………………9 7. Revenue data and marketing budget………….10 8. Information on every company’s STP…………11 9. Porter’s five-force business model……………..13 10. Analysis of SEO………………………………….14 11. Social Media Engagement…………………15 12. Improvement and conclusion……………16 List of features and content information: 1. Byju’s learning app • A dedicated app for parents to monitor children. • Category of study right at the beginning/ first opening of the app. • Wide range of selections (classes 1-12) with different streams in classes 11 and 12 separate. • Competitive exams section, eg. GMAT, CAT etc. • Short video at the beginning to summarise the app. • Free live classes during pandemic outbreak when reserved beforehand. • CONTENT: Live classes updates for various subjects every day. 2. Unacademy • Plain and simple UI. • Vast competitive section. • One minor section of Indonesian content. • Dedicated section for personal and skill development. • Language selection between English and Hindi. • Profiles on the app homepage for teachers. • Notification feed has all the relevant information and announcements. • Subscription based early access to content. • CONTENT: new content in the form of courses updated 2 to 3 times a week. Live lectures every day. 3. Vedantu • Focused mainly on students currently in school. • Clean UI. • Good quality lectures. • NCERT solutions in a section built into the app. • Revision series. • News and announcements in the form of stories in Instagram. • CONTENT: live video lectures every day on different topics. Recorded videos sold now in pandemic with a discount. 4. Lido Learning • App not fully developed, lot of features are missing. • Live classes on the basis of reservation for spots. • Customised homework. • CONTENT: i) live lectures every day. ii) Short recorded lectures with animations, which is the first instalment of content on the platform. 5. Swiflearn • Performance tracking of students. • Only for students in 5th to 10th class. • Live classes scheduled at least 5 days a week. • 1:5 live tuitions. • Practice tests. • Parent’s review and comments in the homepage. • CONTENT: i) live classes scheduled almost every day. ii) NO recorded content. 6. Genius corner • Student dependent progression. • Assessments based on BLOOM’s taxonomy. • Learner’s profiles. • Personalized worksheets. • Mobile app is not working yet (could not register as a new customer) • CONTENT: could not determine the upload schedule, but 5000 video lectures on their website according to their numbers. 7. Embibe • Based solely for pre-engineering and pre-medical students. • Basic information about the exams based on stream selection. • Mock tests for various exams. • Resources for preparation. • Only written content, no video lectures. • CONTENT: no definite upload schedule, depends solely on WIKIPEDIA to provide content to students. 8. Meritnation • Free live classes for students in all streams during the pandemic outbreak. • Enrolling to attend live classes. • Simple and rather bland UI. • No assessments. • CONTENT: one hour live lectures on the app every day. 9. Toppr • Based solely for high-school students. • Huge collection of exams to choose form in the beginning. • List of trending topics on homepage. • In-app reminders to study. • Revision modules. • Adaptive practice. • CONTENT: i) various subjects for live class with each subject taken twice a week. ii) lots of short videos on topics from various subjects. 10. Cuemath • 10 minutes a day practice sessions. • Options to choose what we want form the app. • Good and catchy UI. • Progress statistics. • Content only available for lower classes even though the selection list shows up to class 12. • Feedback right after each assignment of ten minutes. • CONTENT: i)learning is based only on the tests on the app, there is no content to teach the students. ii) math gym(small tests) on various topics updated every day. Assessment The following assessment is based on the relative scores of individual platforms. The first three rows of the table are the scores of the content published, added and updated as of 9th June 2020. The last row is scores of platform’s UI according to the researcher. All the scores are calculated out of hundred. ‘NA’ stands for non-applicable. Publishing Adding Updating UI - - - 50 50 NA 65 - -* - NA 90 60 55 - NA 95 90 95 *- is the score of UI for the website not for the app. Pricing strategies The various pricing strategies for different companies will be dealt with in two different horizons. One will be the companies and their fees for school-level courses, and another will be the companies that offer online coaching for competitive exams, mainly, CAT and UPSC CSE. The points awarded in the tables are out of ten, and are purely the views of the researcher. School Level Company BYJU UNACADEMY Affordability 8.0 Courses for students in school ranging from INR60,000 to 77,500 is a bit on the higher side but is the price for a year. 9.8 Unacademy app is almost free for live classes and assignments. There is a fee for dedicated coaching that is Quality in variety 9.1 With the budget of the company who boasts as the highest invested EdTech start-up there is no lack of good quality teachers in Byju. 8.6 There is a vast collection of different courses, but the quality of some of the courses lack in Perception 9.1 Perception of the app and the company name is very good. It is one of the most recognizable brands in education. 9.1 It is very popular with students wanting to clear competitive exams, most prominent being UPSC CSE. VEDANTU LIDO LEARNING SWIFLEARNING EMBIBE MERITNATION TOPPR equal to half the price of Byju’s. 8.6 Reasonably affordable when compared to other platforms 8.0 The annual subscription costs around the same as that of BYJU’s. 8.4 The annual fees for the premium course offered is around INR50,000. 9.5 The most premium course offered on the platform can now be bought for only INR10,000. 8.0 The pricing on this app is also to a bit on the higher side. 8.7 Compared to other platforms such as Byju and Meritnation, Toppr is comparatively cheaper. comparison to other platforms. 8.9 Total focus on students of 11th and 12th class, not a lot of variety but quality is top notch 8.6 This app only focuses on students from classes 5th to 9th. There is not much variety, but it is on par with quality. 8.5 There are many options within different classes, and the quality is excellent. 8.4 It is a platform for students from class 11th and 12th. There is good quality material but not much variety in content. 9.0 Similar to vedantu, this app also focuses on 11th and 12th class students only. 8.6 Like meritnation and vedantu, only focuses on 11th and 12th class students. 9.1 People view and think the app to be reliable and true to its name. 8.0 It is not a well known platform, because it targets only a small part of the online education realm. 8.1 This app again fails in popularity department when compared to other big platforms. 8.4 It is a moderately well known platform, and has a good reputation amongst the customers. 8.8 Students believe this app will help clear their goals. The perception is exceptional. 8.6 This is a lesserknown platform and fades in popularity when compared to CUEMATH 8.2 There is no annual subscription to this platform rather a ten-month subscription for anywhere between INR18,000 to 30,000. 8.9 The platform offers quizzes and tests for students in middle school. The quality of questions is as expected and covers a large variety of topics. unacademy and byju. 8.1 It is not a very well-known platform, but the customers who use this app are fully satisfied with it. Competitive Level Company BYJU UNACADEMY Affordability 7.8 The prices for competitive coaching reaches a new high with BYJU’s. The price of coaching for UPSC CSE (prelims and mains) can reach to as high as INR82,500. 9.2 Very affordable compared to BYJU’s. The online coaching fees for UPSC CSE (mains and prelims) is only about INR44,000 about half the price of that of BYJU’s. Quality in variety 8.6 There is not a lot of variety, there are courses majorly of UPSC and CAT. But the quality of content is extraordinary. Perception 9.5 Perception of the app and the company name is very good. It is one of the most recognizable brands in education. 9.5 There is a ton of variety in the number of examinations the app provides coaching for. The content is also up to the mark, with occasional hiccups here and there. 9.1 It is very popular with students who want to clear competitive exams, most prominent being UPSC CSE. Problems faced by Customers Even if the platform is good and a lot of research has been done on it, there are still some problems that can be found only when it is given to a third party. Some of the problems that are faced by customers of the above ten platforms are listed below. 1. BYJU’S • Videos consume a lot of data which limits the number of videos that can be watched for some customers. • Sometimes video quality is so poor that nothing on the screen is legible. • There are ads in between lessons, which break the continuity in learning. 2. Unacademy • Sequence of topics is missing. Individual topics cannot be found sometimes. • The app requires high speed internet connection to function properly, which is not available to some of the customers. • Some of the customers found the user interface to be confusing. • There are a ton of notifications for the same lecture which is not even happening right at that moment. 3. Vedantu • There are repeat live session on the same topic which gets monotonous after a couple of times. • There is no way to hide teacher’s cam and the ongoing chat which obstruct the screen real estate. • The video does not rotate to landscape from portrait which is not the best way to view videos. 4. Lido Learning • Some customers are facing the issue of no playback on their devices. • There is no communication between the customer service and the customers. • Shows error when the same account is logged into two devices. 5. Swiflearn • There are a lot of bugs and crashes according to some of the customers. 6. Genius Corner • Data consumption rate for the app is very high, around 250 MB in 20 minutes. • Lot of customers are having trouble logging in. • The app keeps crashing in some devices, not optimised for all the contemporary devices. 7. Embibe • Some of the customers had issues starting up the app. There are also concerns about constant crashing while in use. • Lot of time to load and play content. • There are also a lot of complaints about user interface not being up to the mark. 8. Meritnation • Issues with joining an online class and video buffers even with good internet. • The app doesn’t support live classes, but instead gives a link to the browser live class. • There is a significant amount of time lag between when the teacher writes and speaks in online live lectures. 9. Toppr • There are mistakes in questions from the assignments. • Updating the app lead to loss of information and data on the app. • There are a lot of topics which customers need but are not available even after asking for them. 10.Cuemath • There is some error in inputting values in certain exercises. • Log-in issues with OTP and credentials. • Lot of updates which don’t necessarily improve the working and experience of the user. Sales strategies A major share of sales occur via advertising, and the remaining small portion is with the word of mouth. The table below gives an idea on what kind of advertisement meanµs are being used by different competitors to boost their sales. Type of advertisem ents TV commercial s Newspaper s Billboards Instagram Twitter Facebook Linked in In app popups ✓ ✓      ✓ ✓ ✓     ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓  ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓  ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓  ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓  ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓  ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓  ✓  ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓  ✓  ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓    ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Financials of companies A company cannot function without funds and investments from others. It is hence, important to know how our competitors are in the running race of investor hunt. In addition, what are all the details regarding the deals they make. The below table shows some of the important details of financials of our competitors. Compa ny Founde d Employe es Latest deal type Latest deal amount $400M Number of investor s 16 Total amount invested till date $785M 2011 3,200 Later stage VC 2010 1,000 2011 1,177 Later stage VC Series C $125M 22 $510M $85.5M 13 $90.0M 2019 1,000 Series B $10.5M 9 $10.5M 2019 11-50 Not known Not known 3 Not known 2011 11-50 Angel-type $250K 3 $528.9K 2012 101-250 Corporate round INR 900M 1 $196.7M 2009 1,000 Venture series $5.8M 1 $11.4M 2013 100 Debt financing INR 440M 13 $65.1M 2011 10 Early stage venture INR 390M 6 $24.5M Revenue data and marketing budget The revenue generated by a company can be a measure of how well off they are in their business. Learning the trend and understanding competitors’ situation in revenue can help us in the long run. 1. BYJU’s • Revenue as of 2019: US$78 Million • Marketing budget: US$26 Million 2. Unacademy • Revenue as of 2019: US$250-300 Million • Marketing budget: US$14.8 Million 3. Vedantu • Revenue expected in 2020: 397 Million • Marketing budget: US$5 Million 4. Lido learning • Revenue as of 2019: US$10.6 Million • Marketing budget: not found 5. Swiflearn • Revenue as of 2019: US$5 Million • Marketing budget: not found 6. Genius corner • Revenue data: not found • Marketing budget: not found 7. Embibe • Revenue data: US$1.1Million • Marketing budget: US$1 Million 8. Meritnation • Revenue data: US$4.2 Million • Marketing budget: not found 9. Toppr • Revenue data: US$ 8.4 Million • Marketing budget: not found 10. Cuemath • Revenue data: US$2.2 Million • Marketing budget: not found A graph for the above data is given below for a better and visual understanding. Revenue in million dollars (USD) Information on every company’s STP 1. BYJU’s learning app • BYJU’s learning app is a learning app for students who are looking to do more. The main segment of customers for this app are students, and the remaining small portion are parents. • BYJU’s learning app targets two types of students based on their requirements. The two targeted customer bases are students in school, and students looking for coaching for competitive examinations. • BYJU is by far the best and most funded company of the lot. It is no doubt our strongest competitor. 2. Unacademy • Similar to BYJU, unacademy is also an e-learning app, and segments its customers to an even finer level. There are multiple types of examinations for which unacademy provides coaching, which makes the market more segmented for them. • Unacademy also targets broadly two types of student bases, one is school going students, and the other type are the students preparing to face competitive exams. • Unacademy is also very popular and highly funded. It is comfortably sitting at the upper echelons of the e-learning business with trusted and loyal customers. 3. Vedantu 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. • The segmentation for Vedantu’s market base is smaller compared to BYJU’s and unacademy’s on a broader scale. It segments in a different way compared to the other two. The segmentation for vedantu’s market base is done on the basis of class of the students. It creates more number of segments. • Vedantu targets the students who are currently in their middle and high school. • It is a pretty well known platform with good content and regular customers. Lido learning • Lido learning also segments its market base on the basis of class in which the customers are in. • Lido learning targets students in their high school and middle school. • It is an underdog in the e-learning industry and is known to be good by its customers. Swiflearn • Swiflearn segments students who are different class to promote different products based on their requirement. • Swiflearn targets students who are in class 5 to class 10. • It has very good features and schedule, it is not well known but it will be a tough competitor for us. GeniusCorner • GeniusCorner also segments students based on class to provide them with content which will help students understand better of what they are taught in school. • GeniusCorner targets students from middle and high school. • The position of GeniusCorner in market is not favourable to it. But it still has a large customer base and is improving its state in the industry. Embibe • Embibe has a smaller segmentation which is based on the stream chosen by students after their 10th standard. This segmentation is the way to differentiate students based on the exams they will write in the future. • Embibe targets students who are currently in their 11th and 12th standard, who are more likely to take up a course which will help them in clearing admission examination to premium colleges. • Embibe is not well known because of the fact that it has a very limited market base, but it is also well known among those who have searched and looked for online education concerning JEE and NEET examinations. Meritnation • Meritnation segments its student base in a way similar to that of genius corner. The segmentation is done based on the student’s current class. And material and content is provided to students based on the segment they belong to. • Meritnation targets students in their middle and highschool. • Meritnation is the oldest out of the lot today, and is well known for its novelty and innovation in e-learning in India. It also has a solid capital behind it, and overall could prove to be a strong competitor in the future. 9. Toppr • Toppr is another learning based app which segments its students in the same way meritnation and geniusconer do. Students are segmented based on their class. • Toppr targets the same student base as that of meritnation. It focuses on students who are in their highschool. • Toppr is a well known name in the industry, with a good financial backing and some big names in its arsenal. 10. Cuemath • Cuemath is an online learning app which uses games and small quizzes to teach mathematics basics to students all the way from LKG to 12th class. • Cuemath targets a larger student base than other school-based online platforms. It targets students from kindergarten, primary school, middle school and high school. • Cuemath has good financial support and has excellent UI in the app. It is getting recognition in the market slowly, and will become a big name in the industry someday. Porter’s Five Forces Business Model Porter’s five forces business model is an analysis tool used by business analysts to explain why some industries can sustain and maintain different levels of profitability, and why some of the industries go bankrupt without ever reaching stardom. Conversely it can also be used as a feasibility check for new and upcoming businesses. In this research article, we will try to understand the situation of EdTech company’s plight using porter’s five forces business model. The five forces along with a brief explanation to relevant subject is given below. Force 1: Buyer power, the bargaining power of the customers These days, there are a lot of online teaching companies present in the market which are constantly trying to entice customers to come and buy their products instead of its competitors. So, this will be a strength of the buyer, who has a lot of options to choose from. The price point of this industry is a key-point because these course are either taken by people who cannot afford going to a college in conventional way or by students who are already attending school paying the tuition for the school as well. Force 2: Threat of new Entrants There are more than 4,000 online education platform in India alone in just 11 years. These 4,000 are the ones that have survived long enough to be counted as a company. There are many who did not succeed and were peeled out by the economy and education sector. So, constantly working to improve and staying updated is very crucial in this industry. Force 3: Threats of substitution Even though all the companies working in the EdTech industry offer the same type of product, there are slight differences in each and every one of them which makes a customer choose one product over another. Companies that provide flexibility and are understanding towards their customers pleas and requests will improve themselves and can hope to improve their sales and number of customers. Otherwise will be substituted by the customer for another company. Force 4: Competitive rivalry within an Industry A company to survive in the business has to face off with other countries and come out victorious most of the time to attract new customers and entice the already existing ones. The fees for each of the platform is also a key factor in determining selection of a platform. Presentation of content and assignments will also help the company’s image in customer’s eyes. Force 5: Bargaining power of suppliers The companies providing online learning to customers are doing so with the help of the technological and intellectual prowess that they possess. A company can make use of these strengths that it holds to convince customer of the price he has attached to the product. The company can also confidently put forth a price for a product if supplier concentration is less, effort is more and is evident, etc. Analysis of SEO SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of getting potential customers through online traffic which originates from “free”, “organic”, “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines. This is a kind of passive advertisement where online users will be made to see the website in question even when it is only remotely related to the search. SEO of BYJU’s website is given below. • Meta title of the page has to have a length of more than 70 characters. BYJU’s meta title of the page had a length of 83 characters. • Meta description of a webpage should have at least 160 characters. BYJU’s meta description has a length of 220 characters. • The statistics of the most frequently appearing words with their frequency is given below in the form of a graph. • A website should contain heading tags. BYJU’s website had heading tags. Some of them were “Personalized learning”(H1 heading), “About us”, “Why choose us”, “Our three pillars”(H2 headings), etc. • The website should use a robots.txt file. BYJU’s website had “robots.txt” file in its database. • Site should contain sitemap files for easier access. BYJU’s website had numerous sitemap files. • BYJU’s website was using google analytics to keep track of the traffic to the site. • The BYJU’s website was connected to social media using “facebook”. Social Media Engagement Social media is the new way of effective advertising and connecting with customers informally. Social media not only allow companies to post and advertise their products, but also can be used as an alternate log-in method. Facebook being the most prominent social media website with all the ten listed brands on Facebook with huge following. All the brands also have their own linked in profiles, but that is a bit technical and professional, so it does not come off as social media. Twitter being the second most prominent social media site with all the brands having an account on twitter as well. There are various employees of various brands in quora answering questions from the customers. There are various uses of social media as said before, it is the most effective way of cheap marketing and advertising. One post of unacademy on facebook on how they use social media as advertising medium is given below. The post is simple and straight to the point. It is viewable and accessible to anyone who follows unacademy Facebook page. This kind of advertising is required with the conventional methods of advertising to optimize the sales and budget for advertising. Improvement and Conclusion Improvement and an edge above everyone one else in the industry is very important for Adaptflex. We can take pointers on where to start and how to go about solving a problem by looking at the problems already existing in the industry, which we can obtain from reviews and self-examination. And solving those problems before we roll out our first version of the app. Some of the prominent concerns and their solutions are listed below. • Consumption of internet data was a major concern for many in a lot of platforms, we can solve that problem by adopting a method similar to YouTube where each video will have different qualities in which it can be viewed. • Lots of crashes and bug reports were seen in the reviews section of the apps, it can be avoided by optimizing the app for the most recent version of android and testing it on multiple devices with varying aspect ratio, RAM, display types, etc. to avoid any glitch which users with different devices may face. • Login and credentials errors. There were some apps with error during login. Such apps could not even be opened and potential customers had no other choice but to leave and look for some other platform. This problem is very fatal to our company because even if these kinds of problems are fixed at a later date, the old customers will still be sceptical about coming back to the app. • Like all the other brands, we at Adaptflex should also be very active on our social media accounts, constantly giving out details of the courses, announcements, hiring, discounts and offers, etc. This will attract some customers to at least check out our website. A market research report provides information that reduces risk and uncertainty and increases the success rate of a business. In this case, study and analysis of various top brands in the same business gives us an insight into how to proceed with our own venture in the future. Various conclusions and comparisons drawn after each subtopic can be taken as a point to remember when creating our own version of website or mobile app. Taking good parts from competitors, such as excellent SEO of BYJU’s website can be taken as a base mark and we can try to make a website which is better search optimized than theirs. This report has tried to cover all the questions given in the task sheet with a certain skeleton of report already in mind. The data given in the report is true to the best of my knowledge.