Numerous aspiring entrepreneurs and businessmen look for interesting, challenging, and logical business opportunities. Businesses succeed due to their strong business model and the purpose it connects with the industry. The Post pandemic period has witnessed a surge in certain industry segments due to their need and value addition. There have been several business opportunities coming up in the education sector.
To spread their quality education in different regions, numerous educational institutions open a collaborative business model, also known as Franchise. Here the objective is to reach in different areas by leveraging the strength and business acumen of the local entrepreneurs. Pebbles Preschool, founded by its Founder and CEO, Kennedy Nesamony, offers excellent quality pre-schooling education on international standards with a focus on children-centric holistic learning.
This Chennai-based institution offers excellent opportunities to collaborate in the franchise business model that offers excellent long-term business opportunities through its high-quality, effective education.
Let’s understand more about this interesting educational institution and the business model it works upon.
Right From the Beginning
Pebbles Pre-School was founded in the year 2000 in Chennai. It was the first organized play school and the first to have air-conditioned classrooms. Its focus was to provide international standards of childcare to parents with an emphasis on all aspects of child growth, that includes language, socio-emotional, creative, and cognitive areas of development.
Diverse and Versatile Leadership
Mr Kennedy Nesamoney started his career as a salesman in Eureka Forbes; he then moved on to the cable television industry providing service cable TV to around 1000 households. His other stints were as Managing director of Tiger Balm India Pvt. Ltd., Joint Managing director ZigZag Call Taxi Pvt. Ltd., Managing director Celestial HR Solutions India Pvt. Ltd., and finally as Founder and CEO of Pebbles Pre-School.
Started franchise operations of Pebbles Pre-School in 2014 as a royalty-free franchise brand owning two registered Trademarks (“Pebbles Pre-School” and “Pebbles”). His target was reaching out to individuals interested in starting a business with low investment, good returns, satisfaction, and early break-even. Initial operations were restricted to Tamil Nadu, now looking at expanding Pan India and International too.
Self-Driven Motivation
Both his parents were teachers by profession and worked in Africa in different countries from the early 60s. Kennedy did all his schooling in Africa and found the play school industry very organized. Most of these schools had expats from the UK and other European countries who were running these schools and teaching systematically. The formative years for the child are very important, and it is the time when children learn quickly and this is the time when all their senses must be stimulated.
Kennedy found this lacking in Chennai, where most of the so-called play schools had children coming in, playing around, eating, and sleeping with no structured curriculum. This motivated him to enter the early learning education space.
Value-Added Business Model
Transparency in operations and creating a franchise module that is affordable to all. Pebbles is one of the early players who offered a Zero Royalty Franchise option. Royalty can be very taxing on the franchisee. It helps them with options for setting up the franchise in a systematic, phased, and organized manner based on the area of operation and economic background of the parents. Unnecessary material is not dumped on them.
Countering Challenges in the Quality way
Despite being one of the early players in this industry in India, Pebbles got into franchising quite late. Many players have entered this space, and it is a challenge trying to compete with them without compromising on quality which Pebbles never believed in doing. It, therefore, prefers to have a lesser number of franchisees and focus on quality deliverance.
Empowering Business Model
The playschool industry took a big hit during the pandemic as all the schools were closed. Most of the playschools are run on rented premises and paying rent without income is a big challenge. At Pebbles, the management does not believe in online classes for the age group of children that it caters to. It designed a method of imparting the curriculum by enabling parents to access the curriculum and materials on the school server and teach their wards at their convenience through instructions given daily to the parents by its team. This enabled its franchisees to continue providing parents services and collecting the school fees. The Pebbles management team advised them not to give up hope and try to sustain until the pandemic ended and normal operations resumed.
Gradual Expansion
Pebbles Preschool hopes to enhance its marketing activities in other states across India with an emphasis on post-pandemic needs and safety measures. Today it is ranked as one of the top 15 plays school brands in India. It hopes to better the current to surge into the top five.
The Rising Scope
As already mentioned, there would be a major demand for organized play schools post-pandemic. This will create opportunities for new entrants in the field and opportunities for franchisors to boost their brands.
Pragmatic Approach to Technologies
It is totally against virtual schooling for preschoolers as children in the pre-schooling age have an attention span of hardly 3 to 5 minutes. Virtual schooling will mean making these children sit in front of a laptop or mobile phone, looking at a teacher taking lessons. This becomes a big challenge for parents trying to make their children pay attention to the teacher taking the class. Children in this age group also need personal interaction with the teacher and peers in the class, which is absent in a virtual class. Repeatedly seeing, listening, and feeling the taught aspects, enables the children to grasp things better. Virtual schooling does not provide this. In his opinion, Kennedy doesn’t see any pros in virtual learning for preschoolers.
Win-win Situation
As rightly pointed out by Kennedy Nesamoney, preschool education is essential, not just child’s play. These initial years of early learning play a crucial role in developing these little ones. As an entrepreneur, Pebbles Preschool offers a perfect foundation for a successful business which is the most vital part of a franchise model.
