Education Market Intelligence: The key to delivering better learning experiences

The education industry faces disruption on multiple fronts, including unprecedented shifts in student engagement, technology adoption trends, and globalization of education systems. School curriculums are constantly evolving to meet the needs of new generations and students. 2020 saw demands for mobile/PC in the K-12 market. This global demand expanded by 69% over 2019, reaching 51 million units. This was a direct result of lockdown-induced remote and hybrid learning.

As a result, education industry leaders and startups are now actively looking to better understand the changing student demands. Moreover, they are innovating their products and services to stay future-ready amidst digital transformation and growing competition. Market intelligence can help established and rising education players find a competitive edge and seize relevant growth opportunities amidst disruption.

Here are four ways how education providers can utilize market intelligence to deliver engaging learning experiences and attain market leadership:

1. Identify key growth drivers and trends shaping the education market

The education landscape is becoming more and more competitive. Industry leaders are looking for ways to expand their reach in global markets. Meanwhile, upcoming competitors in the e-learning ecosystem are looking forward to innovating their solutions ranging from K12 to executive education. 

Industry leaders will need to fulfill the rising infrastructural demands including internet connectivity, access to e-content, and hybrid learning among others. Global technological disruption means that education industry players must constantly align their offerings with the changing market landscape. To do so, they must accurately address questions such as: 

• What will be the projected size of your focus market over time?
• What are the trends impacting the market?
• Who are your competitors and what are their strategies to capture market share?
• How must the firm position itself to resonate with the rising student demands in a highly competitive education environment?
• How to identify and implement the evolving best practices that can differentiate the firm’s offerings in the global education market?

Market intelligence solutions such as market research, consumer behavior analysis, trend tracking, and product/service testing can help education institutions and e-learning companies answer these questions by diving deep into customer needs and prevalent market dynamics. They enable organizations to keep pace with market growth trends. Leaders can thus analyze the impact of emerging technologies and new market entrants on K-12, higher education, and executive training. 

2. Consistently track the competition to find gaps and opportunities

Standing out from the crowd in a highly disruptive industry is a top challenge for e-learning and Edtech platforms. With the increasing adoption of ‘digital’, new Edtech startups are emerging with innovative products and services. Hence, to be able to maintain your competitive edge, keeping a close watch on the competitive landscape is a must.

Educational organizations need to watch out for emerging and disruptive market entrants; closely study their marketing and customer acquisition practices, and conduct regular benchmarking studies to identify improvement areas. Monitoring the competitors’ new product or service launches, technology adoption strategies, and media campaigns can enable education companies to best evaluate the following:

• Specifics of the competitor’s platform, programs offered, and technologies implemented
• Cost structure of the offerings
• Support extended to teachers, parents, and students

• Social media strategy and the type of interactions occurring online

• Details about strategic partnerships and their potential investment opportunities

Furthermore, a holistic approach to competitive intelligence that involves in-depth competitive IP analysis, website benchmarking, SWOT analysis, and competitor profiling can provide education companies with strategic direction to navigate near-term risks and seize future growth opportunities. Keeping a close eye on existing and potential competition with the help of relevant knowledge sources – for example, media citations, press releases, and premium data sources – can help industry players maximize the value of learning experiences for students. 

3. Analyze risks and develop strategies for a solid market entry 

Market entries are no piece of cake. While the idea of entering a new market might seem viable on paper, when put to practice, organizations are challenged by several uncertainties. Industry players looking to enter or expand into new markets need a deep understanding of current education market dynamics to identify opportunities and navigate threats.

Market intelligence can provide education players with a thorough understanding of the focus market, regulatory environment, and consumer behavior for a successful market entry. Here’s how:

• Start with evaluating the market size. Identify potential consumers and the strategies to expand this consumer market, and figure out the market share of competitors. 
• Examine the pricing landscape. Gather insights on competitor’s pricing decisions, consumer’s willingness to pay, and the range of pricing that will yield positive results.
• Assess previous entries in the target market. Learn from the past entries how to suitably reach your audience, avoid pitfalls, and navigate a new market with the help of different entry modes.

Identification of suitable business partners such as financers, distributors, suppliers, and market intelligence firms is another important aspect of market entry. An effective go-to-market strategy will be crucial in determining future market expansion plans. 

4. Keep up with emerging technology trends in the education industry

Technology is a key differentiator for business in almost every industry, including education. In fact, the demands for virtual alternatives to offline learning environments are continuously rising post COVID-19. And ed-tech firms are under greater pressure to enhance their technological competitiveness. 

Technology intelligence can help educational organizations stay on top of their game amidst disruption by enabling them to:

• Identify potentially disruptive education technologies such as conversational artificial intelligence 
• Understand the impact of disruptive technologies on their business and the student learning outcomes
• Evaluate potential technology markets and growth opportunities
• Identify innovative uses of existing technologies such as reinforcing mathematical concepts with virtual manipulatives
• Commercialize their technology in existing or new markets

Market intelligence enables educational firms, including e-learning and ed-tech platforms, to understand how technology trends can affect their existing product portfolio. Besides, this approach can help industry leaders identify which technology areas to invest in, to future-proof their businesses. 

Conclusion

Aligning business offerings with the most crucial demands in the education and learning space is the need of the hour. Consequently, educational institutions must consider a comprehensive assessment of shifts in customer behaviors and needs, existing Edtech products, and the regulatory environment. 

Netscribes provides market intelligence solutions to help the education industry leaders achieve a holistic, more accurate view of the market through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research expertise, and flexible delivery models. To learn more about how we can support your firm, contact us at info@netscribes.com.