A

Assignment Report Of

Sale and distribution

FMIT-JAMIA HAMDARD

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF: SUBMITTED BY:

DR.RESHMA NASREEN MANSI JOSHI

SYED AHMAD AFZAL

OVERVIEW

Educomp Solutions Limited , founded in 1994 is a globally diversified education solutions

provider and the largest education company in India.

Educomp Group reaches out to over26,000 schools and 15 million learners and educators across

the world.

We have 27 offices worldwide including an office in Canada, 20 in India, two in Singapore, one

in Sri Lanka, and three in the United States.In addition, the Company operates through its

various subsidiaries including authorGEN, Threebrix eServices, Learning.com, USA, AsknLearn

Pte Ltd, Singapore and via its associates such as Savvica in Canada.

We are now India’s number one education company. For many years, we have been at the

forefront of various pioneering initiatives in the e-education space.

Educomp has range of Products , Services and also they have their own school & Colleges.

To talk about their Products it includes:

EDUCOMP SMARTCLASS

Educomp smartclass is a digital initiative pioneered and invented by Educomp and has already

been adopted by over 5500 progressive schools in India. smartclass is transforming the way

teachers teach and students learn in schools. It’s a new age technology movement that is fast

becoming an imperative for schools. Soon it will touch every class and every progressive school

in India.

QUEST

Educomp’s QuESTTM (Quality Education for Students and Teachers) program is based on the

core premise that every school can become a ‘Learning Organisation’ by bringing in a

collaborative culture and dynamic practices in the school system.

Our QuEST program provides multifold services to help schools to reflect on their current reality

and reach highest level of effectiveness.

From training programs to whole school development projects, we have services and solutions

for all stakeholders in the education set up.

EDUCOMP ONLINE

Educomp Online is an edu-content and online school management resource for new age schools.

Educomp Online provides smartclass videos, calibrated assessments, online learning

management and edutainment learning. Educomp Online is also a powerful platform for the

school, students and the parent to interact with each other seamlessly in a secure environment.

The curriculum reach unfolds from kindergarten to grade 12th covering subjects like

Mathematics, Science, English, EVS, Social Studies, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History,

Geography, Economics and Business Studies.

MATHGURU

MathguruTM is an innovative math-help program designed to provide solutions to the student’s

problems, in a step by step fashion, using a pen and virtual notebook. 

WIZIQ

WiZiQ is an web learning platform that connects students and teachers all around the world

regardless of their age, nationality or school/ college. 

LEARNING HOUR

Learning Hour is an online, educational-assistance portal, offering a complete suite of assistance

services to students across the world. The main services offered are Academic Assistance to

school students, Test Preparation and Application Assistance.

Like wise they have many online products like Eduacomp Leap , Edulgnite , Edulearn , Pave

etc Educomp is basically having Product which works online ,which requires a proper hardware

setup in school & colleges.It caters to the need of each individual weather it is a student ,

Teacher or Parent. Educomp Smart Class , Mathguru ,QUEST ,WIZIQ , Learnhub , Topper

etc each having different features which cover and caters the need of K-12 Segmnet in all forms.

SALES & DISTRIBUTION And SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

The Products of Educomp are all technosavy , to make the most efficient use of the product it is

the sole responsibility of the Educomp to explain their customers the correct benefits of their

product ,to provide good demonstration.Educomp has already made a mark in the industry.Their

target customers are School , Institutions and Colleges. The Sale & Distribution of various

product like Mathguru , Topper etc is done by internet only they have separate websites for these

kind of products.For product like:

Smart Class provides educational instructor led content catering to schools for students from

kindergarten to class 12 and has developed over 8,000 content modules for various subjects in

more than 10 languages Educomp has 2 content development facilities in India at New Delhi and

Bangalore with 140 specialists including 60-70 developers on its roll. Educomp enters into 36-60

months contracts, wherein Smart_Class program is licensed on BOOT (build – own – operate

and transfer) model for content delivery and infrastructure set-up. The hardware cost per class

adds up to around Rs 60-70,000. Recurring costs include maintenance charges and the salaries of

the full time resource coordinators deployed in the school to train and support teachers. The

company earns profits after a mark up is applied over the total costs. Company receives quarterly

payments over the tenure of the contract and at the end of contract period the computer hardware

is transferred to the schools at zero cost while the content and other IPR protected software is

retained by the company. Educomp continues to provide content and maintenance services to

the schools even after the completion of initial contract period, leading to sustained revenue

streams.The company is supported by 10 marketing executives and 18 business partners. At

present, major activities are in North and South India and mainly confined to “A” level cities.

New SmartClass sales Model:

In the new SmartClass business model Educomp will sell, both hardware and content as a

package to a third party vendor. The vendor will install the equipment in the schools and also

provide services of installation, commissioning, maintenance and servicing the customer. The

vendor will securitize the 5 year receivables from the schools from a consortium of banks and

pay Educomp towards the hardware and content. The contract with the school will be a tripartite

agreement which lays down the responsibilities of Educomp and the vendor.

Assuming that the tripartite contract with the school is worth $ 100, Educomp will sell the HW +

Content package for $ 75. The vendor will securitize its $ 100 receivable from the school from

the bank and receive approx. $ 54‐60 which is the discounted value of the receivables and the

same will be paid to Educomp upfront. $ 25 will be retained by the vendor to meet its obligation

to the bank, and its cost of servicing, operating and maintenance. The vendor will be left with a

profit of $ 4 after discharging its obligations. This is in line with the profitability of system

integrators and depending on the efficiency of the vendor this profit may increase.

ICT Solution ICT division has covered around 598 schools and is currently executing projects

with State Governments of Karnataka, Tripura, Orissa, Nagaland, Assam, UP and Uttaranchal. It

successfully completed a Rs 34mn project with Delhi Govt in 2005. The division comprises of 6

marketing, 20 technical and 200 teaching professionals. The company enters into contracts with

various government / semigovernment bodies for setting up and maintaining IT infrastructure,

and providing educational software, digital content and professional development training in

schools across the country. It taps funds from various government schemes including the Sarva

Shiksa Abhiyan and the ICT@School projects as well as budget allocations for bridge the digital

divide In 2004, the company received ISO 9001:2001 certification for application of ICT in

computer aided learning, training and computer literacy projects in schools.

The company enters into a long-term (usually 5 years) contract to execute turnkey projects with a

BOOT arrangement, where it makes investments at the start of the project. About 40% of the

total contract size is the infrastructure component while the rest is the service s and IP

component. Recurring costs include maintenance charges and salaries for 2 teachers per school.

All assets and custom made contents are transferred to the school at a nominal residual value at

the end of the contract period. Debtor Days extend to 6-7 months as the government usually

makes delays in payments. 4-5 tenders are floated by the government every year aggregating to

around Rs 1,250mn. Educomp carefully tracks all the tenders and request for proposals floated

by the various states and participates in them. It maintains a success rate of 50%. Marketing

efforts are targeted according to the annual fund allocation towards IT education by the central

government to various states. Educomp ensures that it is able to compete on price as well as on

product features. A lot of emphasis is put on customer education to expose the customers to the

special features of the products.

Professional Development The company partners with various corporates and NGOs in

executing prominent teacher training projects for both technology aided learning and pedagogy

& cognitive learning. It has trained over 290,000 teachers across 5,000 schools covering 20

metro cities and 40 peripheral towns in India as well as country teams from Korea, Jordan,

Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam. Educomp has teamed up with WIPRO, Microsoft, Azim Premji

Foundation, Learning Links Foundation ( for servicing Intel – Teach to the Future Program )

and Learning Leadership Foundation ( for servicing Microsoft’s “Project Shiksha”) for providing

technological support, contents as well as qualified teachers. It has ongoing partnerships with 15

state governments in India for professional development. Moreover, Educomp runs its own

training program branded as “Quality Education for Students and Teachers (QuEST)” It has

emerged as the top training brand in India providing consultancy according to school’s

requirements. The program is directed towards teachers, students and parents and has covered 18

schools since May 2005. The segment has a dedicated 130-member team of trainers.

QuEST is a customized program of short duration where schools are charged on a per teacher

per session basis. Educomp has entered into a blanket contract with Microsoft since February

2004 for their initiative “Project Shiksha” which is involved in imparting IT education to

government schools. A team of 49 professionals handles the project. Monthly payments are

made by Microsoft on per location basis. Under the contract, Educomp covers 506 Navodaya

Vidyalayas, 600 schools in Punjab and 200 schools in Karnataka. In partnership with Wipro

since 2001, Educomp has provided training sessions spread across 2 years to 2,200 teachers

across 78 schools (mainly private schools) in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi. Two-third of the

total payments are made by WIPRO and the rest by schools on a per teacher basis based on

milestones achieved. A team of 22 and 8-9 freelancers handles the project. Developed and

launched 50 high-end multimedia based educational CD ROMs for Azim Premji Foundation

Partners with Worldlinks to provide professional curriculum in AP & Delhi and with Intel for its

elementary and secondary education programme. The QuEST program is marketed to schools

through direct mailers and proposals. The company also participates in events and seminars to

create awareness. Leads are generated followed by a demonstration and sample workshops in

schools. Marketing efforts also involve cross-selling initiatives for QuEST and Smart_Class.

Online Tutoring in Maths – Mentoraide In order to tap the $8bn tutoring market in the US

driven by the SES component of the No Child Left Behind Act, Educomp started an online math

tutoring service, called “Mentoraide” in January 2005. The unique stylus based service priced at

$15-20 an hour, offers one-on-one support to US students in real time and acquires retail

customers directly through www.mentoraide.com. Educomp is directly marketing Mentoraide in

schools and targeting retail customers through online advertisements in the US and Canada. For

every $100 marketing expenses, the registration rate is 4-5 people. The segment has 8 tutors in

Delhi, with 2 tutors working in 4 shifts a day. Three other full time employees are involved –

Project Manager, Head Mentor and a person for taking service calls. With the help of a Paypal

account, payments made by customers through credit cards are directly transferred to the

company’s account.

Retail – Education Software and Games Educomp’s retail initiative started in 2000 with the

promotion of CDROMs and was extended to education toys in 2003. At present, it has 250

products (toys/CDs) under the Play-N-Learn brand which is owned by Educomp. Also, it has

launched 52 CD-ROM titles based on PlanetVidya content owned by Educomp. It imports toys

from Hong Kong & China and CD-ROMs from UK. The company is an exclusive licensee for

toy brands - Playgo, and Learning Road. It is also an exclusive licensee for marketing the

products of V-tech and Dorling Kindersley & Global Software Publishing.

Learning Portal - PlanetVidya.com Launched in 1999, PlanetVidya.com is one of India’s

largest student centered education portals comprising educational resources in the

form of web-based study material, Internet links, activities, and educational projects. It provides

community services to over 670 schools and has over 15,000 registered users and 570 modules

for class 3 to 12. This portal serves as a marketing tool for Educomp and provides a platform for

building relationship with schools throughout India. It also serves as a platform for Educomp to

introduce broadband enabled content targeted at individual learners. Educomp is likely to

announce new online products under the PlanetVidya umbrella shortly.

These are some of the sales and distribution strategy and Supply Chain Management ways of

Educomp.

Customer service receives a lot of lip service and press , but when it comes down to using it as a sales goal, it presents some problems ?

If you simply give lip service to your customer service effort, you are bound to fail. The entire culture of an organization must be pointed toward the final goal of service excellence

1. One of the first steps in creating a culture of quality customer service is to rate how far along in the process you already are.

2. There should be a clearly defined service strategy and each employee understands how they make it happen in their particular job. We concentrate on exceptional customer care, rather than cost-cutting, to increase earnings and profits.

3. Service marketer should examine all moments of customer contact to ensure a positive experience. Service provider place close attention to the cleanliness, attractiveness and appearance of any part of our business that the customer sees.

4. Service provider evaluate their policies, procedures and systems for serving customers to make sure they are enabling all our employees to give the best service.

5. Their hiring criteria are that applicants are customer-focused and employees are well-trained in both the technical and interpersonal parts of their job.

6. Employee orientation and training includes learning the company’s service strategy and ways to deliver high quality service.

7. There should be regular staff meetings to get input from the customer service front line.

Develop a possible customer service goal that could be used in a B2B setting?

1. Understand first that Marketing’s goal is to get and keep more customers and to do so more effectively than our competition.

2. Realize that, especially in B2B, we need to help our sales people sell stuff.3. Help your organization to the conclusion that the best way to do this is to focus on

customers’ needs.4. Orchestrate a company-wide content strategy that delivers valuable content that our

customers want in all the places they go.5. Set clear goals for all marketing activity that is mapped to business outcomes.6. Create an integrated annual marketing plan mapped to buyer’s journeys and media

consumption patterns.7. Work closely with partners on a pay-for-performance basis.8. Drive customer-centric content into all channels and test out as many variables as

possible.9. Focus on optimizing your plans not on tactics and execution.