Growth and challenges of eTutoring Industry in India

Do you think eTutoring support providers like eSolve would be a threat to the eTutoring companies?

The idea of an eTutoring support company like us is to complement the eTutoring companies. Its driving force is the focus on solving operational and delivery challenges. The expertise of defining what shall be offered, how tutoring shall be executed, what values and methods of delivery shall be opted for, what technology shall be used, how the technology will be used, and loads of other things, lies with the eTutoring company.

I think both would continue to exist in a cohesive manner.

What kind of online tutoring companies do you see succeeding and making it big in their efforts to business?

Over the next five to seven years, with increased awareness, exit barriers for customers and tutors will go down and the industry will move towards observing and behaving like a commodity market. Regionality will not matter. Location will not matter. The sole driver will be the pricing and quality of tutors, not even the process of tutoring, since a lot of standardisation may happen over a period of time.

Those organisations which can create operational efficiency and convert that into indirect revenue by creating repeat customers shall prevail in the long run. Maximising customer lifetime value will be at the core of things to come. This can only happen through the organisation's philosophy and belief about why they are in this business.

At that time the organisation which focuses on generating warmth between itself and the child will earn a premium on its services, rather than those who are transactional in nature with their work.

What is the biggest challenge you think the eTutoring industry is facing?

It is difficult to point out the biggest, because in an industry which is in its growth stage challenges differ for each service provider and in each region. For example, in India the biggest challenge for any eTutoring company is to drill through the historical set-up of the schooling and conventional tutoring industry in this country. Taking its roots from the Gurukul culture, the entire education system has developed over thousands of years of evolution. Like the one-to-many schooling philosophy which runs like a machine, conventional tutoring also takes its shape from the same. Thus cost, tutoring environment, and the belief system of parents, who generally are the decision makers in India, is hard to ignore.

Online tutoring, which started in the US with cost arbitrage between the private or home tutor and the eTutoring model, had that as the main driver of growth, but this is not the case in the Indian market. The challenge is to offer some value and package it in a way that appeals to the needs of parents with a fixed mindset. In India the price would always be on top, unless someone creates a niche which is hard to ignore.

From a global perspective, including India, a big challenge for all organisations would be to create an environment between tutors and children which generates warmth rather than a transaction. At present tutoring is extremely transactional. Even the process of tutoring may show personal involvement, but it is driven by a process which trains a tutor to behave like that. This can be generated only when the individuals who are actually seeking career options in tutoring come into the system, rather than individuals seeking this as a part time money making option.

If you think about it, which are the two teachers you remember even today, 20 years or so after completing your education? I am confident they will be the best and the worst of the lot.

According to you, what would be the biggest game changer in the coming years for the eTutoring industry?

There will be two strings which will pull the future.

• Use of technology which the users can relate to, and which facilitates ease of use and personalisation.
• The use of methods to maximise customer lifetime value, since this is a service where the lifespan of a customer can be as high as ten years or more if the service is relevant. This is more important than the technology, as it must be driven as a belief system.

Do you think eTutoring would become a long term, full time career option for aspiring tutors in coming years?

At eSolve it already is. For a job to qualify as a career option in conventional terms, it must have sustainability, show growth over time, and create lucrative rewards, financially and emotionally. At the rate at which the industry is growing, it has already started ringing the bells on all three counts.

What are you most excited about at this moment?

We are extremely excited about four things:

• The rate at which acceptance for education driven by technology is gaining momentum, supported by the fundamental infrastructure. It has already started moving from desktops to your hands, tablets and mobiles.
• The rate at which online tutoring is growing at this moment across the world. Today there are three times more companies in this space compared with the numbers five years ago.
• The confidence shown in this space, which can be seen in the amount of funding it has attracted over the last couple of years. Over 50 EdTech startups gained momentum with funding in the last couple of years.
• More man hours of work would mean better workflow, load consistency and a larger requirement for experts. These are the biggest reasons for making tutoring delivery move beyond a part time to a full time job.