Kindle

Introduction
As per 2011 census, India’s literacy level is 74% which is much lower as compared to the world average of 84%. We can estimate the size of Indian education sector by analyzing the public and private expenditure on education. In 2011, the private expenditure alone on education was $60 billion and the public sector spending on education in the form of various schemes was $8 billion in the financial year 2011-12. In spite of all the investments made and private spending, there is still a huge gap between demand and supply. The manifestation of this gap has been the rise of Indian Coaching industry, also known as “shadow education sector”, which is assumed to be of $6.4 billion in size as of September 2012. And it is expected to grow by a rate of around 14% CAGR and is expected to be around a $26 billion industry by 2020. Recently, the telecom minister Mr. Kapil Sibal has emphasized on making the education sector to go digital within next 3-4 years. Approach to the problem
Market research
India has the largest population in the world in age group of 5-24 years, which is around 450 million. Total number of schools in India stands at 1.3million out of which 20% are accounted by private schools. While only 10% of private schools have tapped the potential of digital education, in government school there is barely any digitization of education. At graduate and post-graduate level, most of the students have access to internet and electronic gadgets like laptop and tablets but it is only hard copy which is widely used for text books and other activities like quizzes and assignments. So, going forward following points will have to be looked upon: a. Understanding present status and characteristics of Indian education system b. Behavioral study of reading habits of students and teachers c. Impact of learning and unlearning involved in shifting to digital version of books from existing hard copy formats d. Comparative study of education system of India and western countries
Segmentation and size of opportunity
Segmenting the market requires a detailed study, as Indian education system is very diverse in nature and so are the characteristics of end users. There are a few central boards such as CBSE, ICSE etc. along with different state boards. Every board has different syllabus, medium of education and methods of evaluations. Also, the technological comfort of students as well as teachers differs across different tier of cities and socio-economic background. Hence, following tasks would have to be carried out in order to determine our customers: a. Identification of parameters for segmenting the market space b. Segmentation on the basis of selected parameters c. Identifying the target segments and profiling of customers in each segment d. Determination of market potential for each of the target segments
Landscape
With rising demand from school and colleges, digital education sector has been growing and many players have made entry in this market. While Educomp Solutions, Everonn Education, NIIT, Core Education & Technologies, IL&FS and Compucom are dominant players, the new entrants are HCL Infosystems Learn Next, Tata Interactive Systems, Mexus Education, S. Chand Harcourt (India) and iDiscoveri Education. So, going forward the sector looks to become highly competitive and following points will have to be worked upon: a. Listing down all the players in the sector and their product offerings b. Finding the key competencies and strategic position of major players in the market c. Identify competition for ‘Kindle’ from product offering by other players d. To explore opportunity of supplementing the product offerings of existing players with ‘Kindle’. e. Analysis of role of government rules and policies - The ambitious plan of government of India, to provide Aakash tablets to every student is still underway and is a major step towards promoting digital education in India.
Product
Infrastructure issues like internet access and electricity will be the major area of concern for switching to ‘Kindle’. Moreover, depending on different customer profiles, the functional utility and features required of the product will vary and so will be the corresponding pricing strategy. So, major working points for products are: a. Study of issues like internet connectivity, power consumption, battery life etc. b. Making a list of product features and, software and hardware, configuration for each target segment c. Mapping of customer needs with product features and thus creating product portfolio consisting of separate product offering for each segment d. Strategy formulation for customized content development for different schools, boards and universities.