GK Publications now a part of CL Educate
Posted on November 29, 2011
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GK Publications now a part of CL Educate
In our march towards establishing a stronger presence in the newer and fast growing segments within the test-prep industry, I am happy to share with you the integration of GK Publications into CL Educate. As you are aware, we are betting strongly on Civils, GATE and PSU exams for the coming 2-3 years.
GK Publications was established in 1994 and since then has been a leading publisher of formula books, guides, test papers and question banks for professional examinations like GATE, IES, IAS, various, Public Sector Undertaking examinations, CAT, etc. The management team comprises of Rakesh Mittal and Poonam Mittal supported by a team of about 50 employees. The company has an active and highly qualified advisory board which oversees its content development. Most of the content is owned by the management and a large chunk of the content development team is outsourced.
One of the highlights of GKP is the high competence of Rakesh and Poonam. Our own Phi-Lab and GKP stand to gain immensely due to the high synergies and CL too stands to gain from the experience of these two seasoned entrepreneurs from the world of publishing.
Some basic facts of GK are as follows:
- Content - 100,000+ pages of IP / content
- 500+ titles in print, primarily in areas of Engg, PSU Entrance, Civil services (IES/ IAS), Banks, MBA, Others
- 150+ distributor network, 750+ dealer network and 165+ training centers (max concentration of network in west and South Zones which contribute c. 33% of the revenue each)
Some qualitative observations relevant to the exercise:
1. Sector Outlook:
- Proposed transitions at the policies by MoHRD, could throw up newer opportunities for testprep players willing to re-invent themselves constantly and stay in step with the environment.
- Growing of e-learning opportunity given the increased technology outreach and higher acceptance levels. This could result in lesser number of paper books being demanded. Also, as more and more entrance exams go online, the preferred mode of learning/ test prep would be through electronic media.
- Competition continues in the form of small regional players, coaching classes, second hand books market and photocopying.
2. It is to be seen how well the content can be migrated to the e-learning space and value-added services mounted on top.
Building Synergy with the CL Test Prep business ?
G K Publication currently sells around 600,000 titles every year to about 200,000 students. Most of the students who buy the books of G K Publication are ready targets for the test prep value added services from the CL portfolio. Even if we are able to offer some kind of Value Added services to about 20 p.c. of the above students, it would dramatically enhance CL’s reach and student penetration, adding significantly to CL’s both top and bottom line. Also, some of their core selling products like GATE, Bank PO & Clerical examinations and PSU entrance examinations, are likely to be focus areas in the coming years from CL’s perspective.
Conclusion:
This acquisition seems to a great opportunity for CL to backward integrate and strengthen its already robust content pool. GKP brings on board several book titles that would supplement CL’s test prep material and also, help in venturing into new verticals like PSU entrances, Defence entrances, etc.
Satya Narayanan R
Test Prep ka King Kaun?
Posted on November 18, 2011
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Test Prep ka King Kaun ?
There are many ways of saying the same thing. Let me try four different ways of saying a thing before sharing a prophecy and a story.
One : Some body had defined ‘luck’ as the ability to survive for 20 years and stay prepared for that elusive thing called ‘luck’ tohappen to you.
Two :AllamaIqbal wrote –
“Girenge shah-sawaar hi maidan e jung men
Wohkyagirengejoghuntnonkaybalchalen”
(only those who are on horse-backs in the battle field are likely to fall, not those who are on their fours)
Way-three :The warrior king, Mohammed Ghazni was so clear and focused on making his conquest of India that he kept trying in spite of repeated failures. He is said to have succeeded in his 17thattempt !
Way-Four :
BhikuMhatre shouts a question loud into the sunset standing on a sea-side rock – “Mumbai ka Don Kaun?”. The movie, incidentally, was ‘Satya’ !J
Now, The prophecy :
The test-prep industry will be a play of just about two to three players delivering programs across all segments in another four to five years. Even if I cannot offer a prophecy, I am allowed to think loud. Only those brands that have the best of both worlds - old and new - will survive and thrive. The goodness of ‘trust’, ‘credibility’ from the old world. At the same time, the risk-taking, openness and innovation of the new world are equally critical.
The number of players with these rare attributes are very, very few.
The Story, now :
CL ties up with Brilliant Tutorials as a platform partner for the entire sweep of the country to the North of Vindhyas covering over 20 states. We will represent Brilliant Tutorial as a brand and company in the market place. In other words, CL is the platform on which BT will grow, beginning Jan 2012.
A few words about Brilliant Tutorials :
BT is an almost 40 year old brand that is revered by generations of competitive exam takers. If you take IIT alone, over 30,000 IIT alumni have been grateful and delighted alumni of ‘Brilliants’ ! Is there anyone who comes anywhere close to that ? According to BT academic head, over 70 percent of the doctors too in the country are BT alumni from the past three or more decades. The story is similar across all the segments that BT has participated in over the past decades.
Why does it make sense for CL ?
While CL has done path-breaking stuff in the MBA and LST prep, our success in engineering and medical preps is rather modest. We always realized the fact that these are important segments to crack to be called the ‘king of test-prep’!
We have been pegging away at the engineering test-prep at the grassroots even as we kept trying for some ‘out of the box’ break-through. It is only appropriate that I acknowledge the valuable role played by our own Engineering army generals for the past few years including Arindam, Shivku, Sharad, Jitin, Suman, Deepak, Vivek and many more.
The ‘out of the box’ break-through seems to have come our way now.
What does this agreement entail on the ground ?
CL platform comprising her centres, people, management, technology, HRetc,. would be brought to bear upon Brilliants’ growth. Our strategy would be a mix of retail centers like we already do or in the form of integrated programs inside a school. Brilliants’ material, academic practices, faculty, over 1000 hours of video learnings(‘on-demand’ library) will be available to us in addition to the credibility and the results’ track record of this wonderful brand built painstakingly by a family of academicians from Chennai.
What is special about Brilliants ?
Over the past 15 years, we have seen many a JEE-prep players implode. We have seen the opportunity of hiring or acquiring key assets from those vulnerable players many times over. However, a close scrutiny always told us something not-so-sweet about the opportunity. On each occasion, there was something fishy or un-holy or less-than-acceptable hygiene about the entity or the offer. We always observed the ‘tamasha’ being played out by various players with little interest!
Brilliant tutorials is a real holy brand in that context. Notwithstanding the not-so-great management by the some past leaders of BT in the North Indian markets, Brilliants continues to stand for the age-old virtues of student welfare, ethical business practices, and so on. We would be willing to travel a long distance to make ‘Brilliants’ a partner for CL’s growth !
The Business news ?
When CL picks up the operating platform role shortly, we will have become the largest IIT-JEE player in this part of the country, arguably. The combined student strength of engineering students (from CL and Brilliants put-together) would be over 10,000 students spread across 22 cities! Not Bad, MrGhazni!
What does the future hold as an opportunity ?
IITJEE prep is set to go part-aptitude in 2013!
Aptitude ka king kaun ?
- CL
IIT-JEE ka king kaun ?
– BT
The coming together of CL and Brilliantbrings the most potent combination to go and conquer the engineering and medical space in the coming years. We will continue to make MrGhazni proud and would leave no stone unturned to go after the exciting opportunity. Can we aim to make our IITJEE numbers bigger than our CAT numbers ? Your choice could make all the difference. Of course, you have to ‘be prepared’ to get lucky!
Stay tuned! More to come!
Satya
Hindu Business Line
Posted on June 16, 2011
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CL Dare
Posted on June 15, 2011
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From TCL to CL Educate (1995 – 2011)
Posted on June 15, 2011
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‘The Career Launcher’. That was the name that I gave to the new born in 1994. I distinctly recall the discussions with Shashi Shetye on the logo, the name, the font, the colours etc,.
Shashi Shetye was a former creative director at ULKA who had turned entrepreneur and set up his own design and creative studio along with his brother Purushottam. At Ranbaxy, weused to get a lot of brand related works done by Shashi. When I founded CL in my head, I spent time with Shashi and had good enough rapport with him to seek his support to give corporate identity to the new born – The Career Launcher. I would dream of how ‘TCL” would become a name on the lips of the students of the city of Delhi.
Alas, that never happened. That is why we say that Customer is God. While the letterhead and other official papers pronounced us as ‘The Career Launcher’….the customers began to call us ‘CL’ a few years down the road. Quite invisibly, the ‘The’ vanished in our next corporate branding exercis 
The CL journey continued in the area of testprep until 2006 when we began looking at other areas of education to propel our own growth in a new India. Newer areas of testprep have begun to occupy more visible spaces in our minds and on our shelves such as the civil services, GATE, Bank PO and so on.
More importantly, newer education segments such as employability training, K12 schools education and higher education have now come to occupy an important position in our portfolio. Testprep contribution has come down from 100 percent to about 60 percent of our business. Non-MBA prep business contribution has increased from around 20 percent to about 60 per cent over the past five years.
Some of you might know that we had set out on a “vision 2010” exercise with the help of Dr Mrithyunjaya Athreya in 2005. We clearly saw a bright future unfolding in front of our eyes if we could graduate from being an MBA testprep company to a braod-spectum education player capable of building a brand, a platform, a team that is capable of riding the next wave – Education in India.
2010 is past too :
Time Flies. It seemed like yesterday when we were in Dr Athreya’s workshop !
I feel very contented that we have withstood the challenges of reinventing ourselves with all the rigours that it calls for. There aren’t many stories of this kind in India. As we speak, we are a company that has done the following over the past five years in areas that we knew nothing of, in 2007 or even in 2008 :
- We are the largest PPP partners as far as ITI partnership with the Governments are concerned. We are felicitated and our case study quoted in the right forum as an ‘ideal’ partner who keeps to the ‘letter’ and the ‘spirit’ of the tie-ups that we enter. We run 22 ITI (Industrial Training Institutes) across the country.
- Our Vocational training practice now spans the Government as well as the private / corporate sector. By training over 15,000 in the recent past, we would figure among the largest vocational training companies already in India. And, we are just about gotten started.
- We have moved on to build a strong IWS brand. The traction is just about beginning to happen. We will have about 20 schools in our fold before August 15th including half a dozen rural schools that cater to the bottom of the pyramid without compromising on the education quality.
In addition to these, there are many conversations that are always on that are indicative of the vector that the company is on. Since I am privy to these, I can say even after discounting for my own excitement or self-delusion that another purple patch is just round the corner.
When I look back at CL’s journey now (this has begun to happen over the last few months), I see it in four distinct phases :
1995-2000 : Beginners Test
The world did not know about us. The effort that it took to get the first 100 students was an university education in itself for me. Moving from 100 to about 2000 students in the year 2000 was the time when we had become ‘men’ in the entrepreneurial world. This phase was one of laying the foundation. The efforts and returns were disproportionately low, as it happens in any entrepreneurial journey.
2001-2005 : The MBA wave!
The MBA segment was growing. Anyone who was on the wave was riding it to the point of many not realizing that the success was due to the wave and not due to our competencies. The returns were disproportionately good.
2006-2010 : The reinvention
The MBA wave has waned over the past few years. It is much saner now though the engineering wave continues unabated. CL entered newer areas. We were challenged to prove our worth all over again. Confronting our own mindsets, newer market opportunities and challenges, creating newer teams, raising resources for the new ground breaking efforts etc,. This has been the challenging period of re-invention. The returns have again been disproportionate to our efforts. What keeps me and this team going is that deep down we love the joy of being in education. The joy is always the core thing. The rest are perks, at best or distractions in the worst case scenarios!
2011 Onwards :
I see the hardwork of the past five years beginning to pay off yet again. The challenges are not over yet. However, that our insights of 2006 or initiatives of 2008 are beginning to gather momentum. We are also held in appropriate esteem for the way we conduct our business. We must continue to chase growth in an unrelenting way by focusing on two things -
- Enjoy the journey : nothing is more important than the joy of pursuing something. Not the topline, the bottomline. Nothing
- Build the aura of trust, honesty, credibility : This is the only way to last forever. Profits are a short term ‘Maya’. That will chase you if you are seen worthy of doing business with. We must continue to be frugal and focus on building credibility in whatever we do.
Every thing Changes except the core :
The only unchanging thing about any organization has to the core thing about it – called the Core purpose and core values. That is in place for CL. We will have to make every effort to nurture, replenish, provide nourishment to that at all times.
Every thing else changes. Everything has to and must change. And, we have done that willingly and proactively for CL. The business segments have changed. The leadership transitions have happened organically over the last decade, the geographies have changed. Practically everything has been touched.
CL becomes CL Educate :
Names evoke a mental model. CL evokes a mental model of CL that is synonymous of the CL of the 2000s. We are in 2011. We need to build a new mental model of CL. The best place to address it now that we have reinvented the business is to reinvent the name itself - We are “CL Educate” now.
As an organization, CL gives way to CL Educate here on. The testprep business will continue as CL and becomes a strategic business unit under the umbrella of ‘CL Educate’.
Be prepared to relate the above story to dozens of curious readers, customers, well-wishers who are going to be confused about the new name. Confusion is the starting point of creating a new order. That is the evidence of the destruction or the dismantling of the older mental model. The dismantling has to be done in complete and the new mental model given space in the minds of all our stake holders from share holders to the new walk in at our centre when they want to know more about it.
Conclusion :
Entrepreneurship is about the future. Not the past. Entrepreneurship is about doing something proactively. Entrepreneurship is about not worry about an outcome but to put energies to guide the future to a desired outcome. And yet, at all times, it is about staying open to feedback and humble about oversights. Let us stay true to this and guide CL to a glorious education decade that is ahead of us in the new avatar – CL Educate !!
Satya