What We Learnt about Scaling a Higher Education Solution

As a professional and entrepreneur, I have been closely connected to the education industry for about 20 years now. It is as an entrepreneur that I have come to learn and understand the dynamics of the industry and the way it operates. Throughout my entrepreneurial journey, I have been amazed at the lack of product and delivery innovation within this space but could not easily figure out the reason why.

On this journey I have gathered valuable insights (thanks to my team and their relentless pursuit to achieve product-market fit in this space) and thought of sharing this learning here for the benefit of other ambitious entrepreneurs operating within this exciting education space.

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Having trained in supply/value chains all my life, value chain approach is, and always has been, my way of understanding and explaining ‘why things work the way they do’ and ‘how can they be done differently to achieve better outcomes for everyone’. Here too, value chain approach has come to my/our rescue. I am going to fall back on simple drawings of value creating players in the chain to explain the insights we have gathered while trying to bring our education products to market (which happens to be another exciting but complicated niche of Food & Agribusiness).

Let me try and make it clear that I am talking about full education product/s not just the technology to create delivery efficiencies. Education is a full experience and just the delivery efficiency unfortunately wouldn’t do the full job. (Happy to debate and discuss this in the comments section below!)

To me, a full education product has a curriculum, content and a delivery model to engage the learners delivering on the promise of outcomes (for example, Harvard MBA program is a full education product, whereas any variant of that MBA product offered on Coursera or other platforms is not a full education product for the simple reason that it lacks the full education experience and commitment towards learner outcomes).

The value chain of a current full education product looks as simple as the one demonstrated below:

Illustration: Current Higher Education product delivery value chain

So the value chain of education still operates in a vertically integrated mode. Furthermore, the business model of the high quality providers (Harvard, for example) has been to maintain their approach to access, rather than to scale it. This way, reputation in this industry has become a huge factor and, as it normally happens in any industry, the easiest route for pure commercial substitutes (replicas) is to imitate rather than innovate. In essence, ‘full education’ access has become limited to learners that meet the criteria of the education providers (and the criteria is set to limit access or maximise commercials for the replicas).

Now within this setting, if you are an entrepreneur looking to distribute your innovative full education value proposition, you have one of two options. Option one is to go through established institutions, which means your outcome is dependent on them buying in your value proposition and scaling ambitions, both of which work against the fundamentals of their current value creation and delivery model.

Illustration: Channel option (option one) to distribute your innovative education product

A tempting option two is going direct to the learners, but here reputation must be remembered. How would you improve your product and delivery model to build reputation without having access to the right learners to start with? While the world talks about lack of access to education, education entrepreneurs possibly can tell the world how difficult it is to get access to right learners. You would discover very slowly that managing to reach them alone wouldn’t get you their buy-in and commitment for learning; there is a reputation gap and a distrust of the new (particularly when exploring education within sectors that have no exposure to disruption)

Illustration: Channel option (option two) to distribute your innovative education product

Hopefully by now you would have realised that the value chain dynamics make it challenging to bring innovative education products to market. It is a known fact that innovation in education is a difficult business but possibly the opportunities lie in understanding the ‘Why’ and how to get around it.

There are a couple of broader contextual points we have learnt. Firstly, low cost training brings little commitment - education must be about outcomes, and no one gains from this model. Secondly, we have been able to run profitable, full education experiences in a pure online model, but what this left us with was a cohort of learners who had very little exposure to their peers, and for many of them, this fell short of being a full experience; I’m sure most of us can count classmates among our closest friends and colleagues.

Whenever we reached the right market, the most common questions we would receive were ‘Where are you based?’ and ‘What’s your phone number?’. Whilst learners and providers can gain from affordability and accessibility, it was clear that learners weren’t willing to do this at the expense of have a full experience (at least within our target sector).

The result of our search for a distribution model that can fit the current context is the Champions Program. This option is what we believe will be the model to scale higher education. In this model you not only give yourself an opportunity to scale but to stay relevant to local needs. A capable and aspirational distribution partner is a great source of intelligence for innovation and building reputation.

In this model, we will train our distribution partners (Champions) to become Certified Trainers for Agribusiness Academy. This will mean that we can deliver blended learning at scale, with end learners studying on-location with Champions before their digital experience with Agribusiness Academy. We will assess the learners and issue certifications, whilst Champions can handle the recruitment, local context and local payment options that learners are still expecting. Finally, we have an answer to ‘Where are you based?’ and ‘What’s your phone number?’. After designing this distribution model, our long-term academic partner has agreed to certify the program, showing that proactive established education institutions can play a part in the future.

Illustration: Channel option (option three) to distribute through trainers (champions)

In a time where there is a lot of debate about the future of education and employment, building new distribution options offers the biggest opportunity in every industry (for example, online marketplaces are maturing food delivery distribution) and our experience with the Champions Program in Food & Agribusiness Management suggest that this is relevant within the education space too.

The insights and the models suggested here are experiential insights based on our relentless pursuit for the perfect distribution model within the education space. If you are an education entrepreneur with ambitions to scale, our suggestion would be to start with third option presented here, and hopefully the Champions Program offers you some valuable insights to adapt to your needs.

You can learn more about our Champions program here: https://agribusiness.academy/pages/champion-program