Key Takeaways from Ed-Tech Panel for Small Businesses
The panel included EdTech experts such as Kanika Mathur, CMO, Harappa Education, Puneet Nagpal, APAC Customer Marketing Lead, Coursera & Maricel Custodio, Head of Digital Marketing & Acquisitions, Laureate International Universities.
Given below are some of the key takeaways from the session -
1. The Pandemic has become the new CIO to fuel and accelerate innovation. Agility has been more important for Startups and traditional business during pandemic.
2. 600M learners in APAC who are now moving from Core skills to supplementary & complimentary skills.
3. Professionals outgrow their skilled advantages faster these days. That’s why learning at every stage of career has never been so important.
4. The Pandemic has forced creativity into traditional education models which helped in democratising the education sector.
5. Learners are looking for shorter courses (2 Hrs to 20 Hrs) on up-skilling which are practical and intuitive. Education providers and aggregator platforms are listening to the learners and offering what they need. Customer centricity is the key.
6. EdTechs are moving from access to education to how one is accessing it. They are improving the experience by gamification and personalisation using AI and data.
7. Localisation is very important along with cultural nuances for an EdTech to succeed in a market.
8. The current trend is of blended leaning with a good mix of On-campus & Online education giving learners more choice. Reverse pathways will be a future trend in many markets specially APAC.
9. EdTechs are providing services to match the learning style of the user (Video/ Audio/ AR, VR etc.). This makes learning & experience personalised for each user.
10. Startup founders are doing courses on Data, Business and Technology areas.
11. For most EdTechs - the content must come first and should be unique, followed by technology.
12. The content must be used as a marketing strategy making it an Art (Storytelling) & science (Data) fusion.
What EdTech businesses should do going forward?
a. Define the problem that you want to solve and for what price (Product – Market Mix). Also find your sweet spot – Distribution, Content, Technology etc as a differentiator.
b. Outcome/benefits/ Value to consumer must be defined clearly.
c. They MUST focus on building a brand and not only at the demand.
d. LTV of content created must be looked at.