Startup Business Plan for Educational Technology Providing Firm in India

Abstract

Advancements in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) have completely transformed our life. Internet has become a technology without which it is difficult to survive now. Internet was initially used as means to access the information. But now, with the help of so many web applications, internet is providing enormous amount of business and personal tools. These tools are specially designed to make particular tasks easy. Internet is also used to share information and communicate with people who are geographically apart. Many businesses and social fields have benefited from the application of these technologies; and education industry is no exception. There are many applications of (ICT) technologies in education. The use of multimedia such as projectors and computers has captured education industry from decades. But when we specifically talk about internet or communication technology than distance learning using these enabling technologies is the first one that comes in our mind. Apart from that, there are many other terms which are related to digital technology and education industry such as e-learning, digital learning, simulation software, Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Competency Management Systems (CMS). All these technologies together make the process of providing quality education much easier and faster. LMS is usually deployed in educational institutes where it can facilitate the interactions between teachers and students more efficient. With the help of this technology, teachers can share coursework related information with their students, upload course documents, homework assignments and initiate online discussions. On the other hand, students can create their own study groups, post questions and comments in discussion forums and upload/submit assignments/homework. Teachers can track the progress of a student online. All these facilities improve the quality of communication and in turn education. This also reduces a lot of administrative overhead since all the information is stored online. CMS is similar in concept to LMS but it is mostly deployed by businesses. Many businesses, especially the consulting firms whose business model depends upon knowledge workers and their skills, need to manage the competency of their employees. Usually such businesses promote advanced learning and skills development among their employees by integrating learning and development as the part of their performance management systems. These companies can benefit by deploying company-wide CMS [12]. Through CMS, they can assign particular skills and competency to a particular employee and monitor their progress online. The same system can be used by companies to make project and resource allocation decisions by readily accessible mapping of competencies. Many universities and companies in USA actively use these technologies in some form or the other. However, although India is a leading provider of high class information technology professionals in the world, many Indian education institutes do not use ICT technologies to the fullest, especially LMS[6]. The primary reason for not adopting to the new technologies is the lack of IT infrastructure in the rural areas and increasing cost of ICT deployments in bigger cities. Deploying such technology in schools and colleges becomes very expensive. Usually, there are individual contractors who design the required systems for schools and universities. Designing and developing such systems is time consuming as well as expensive. Once deployed, these systems also have high maintenance costs. There are not many standard and easy-to-use commercial products in the market which universities could readily deploy on the campus and start using it. There is a strong need of such web applications, which could be easily used by education industries in India. This business plan is an attempt to bring the power of technology to Indian education industry.