What is Wrong With byju's?

 

During a counselling session, a Byju's sales executive asked Anushka what she wanted to become when she grew up. Anushka, who was in the 6th class, replied that she wanted to become a doctor. Over the next hour, the Byju's sales executive convinced Anushka's parents to part with nearly Rs 1.2 lakh for a 7-year subscription of Byju's. And that too, the entire payment paid upfront. But how did the sales executive manage to do that? First, he gives her a test. He loads a few questions on his tablet and tells her she has four minutes to solve all of them. Anushka answers all the questions in merely two minutes. Anushka's mother went on to say that Anushka is very smart but both she and her husband don't have enough time to devote to Anushka's studies. So they have to send Anushka to a tuition center. That's exactly the opportunity that the BYJU's executive needed for his sales pitch. 

He said that Byju's will make Anushka's base strong. BYJU's uses videos to teach. The videos are liked by the children and they don't get distracted. And for this, they need not be dependent on the school or even the teachers. Hearing this impressed Anushka's parents greatly. Then the Byju's executive uses his next tactic. He gives Anushka another question. "There are 15 cookies which need to be put into boxes. Each box can take two cookies. How many boxes do we need?" This question demands a fair knowledge of fraction. And the concepts of fractions are not that easy for the children to comprehend And this was a plan of the sales executive. A former sales executive of Byju's has revealed that They are trained to ask a particular set of questions, which they know are difficult for the student to answer The question on fractions is an example of that. When Anushka was unable to solve this question, then the sales executive told her parents That Anushka is a smart girl. But she takes quite long to answer some questions. Therefore, she needs some guidance. And it would be best for them to start thinking about it right now. Else her marks might drop in the future, and she might have to opt for Humanities or Commerce. 

And then Anushka will not be able to become a doctor. And you're aware of how Indian parents almost get a heart attack when Humanities or Commerce are mentioned. And through this strategy, the sales executive is able to easily convince Anushka's parents to make a payment of 1 lakh 20 thousand- fully upfront. And Anushka's family is not the only one to have undergone such an experience. And in this blog , we will not only discuss the problems associated with Byju's but what we could do to solve them. So I encourage you to read the entire blog , especially the solutions that we discuss at the end The ed-tech sector in India has been flourishing in India for a long time due to various reasons, for example, due to a rise in internet penetration. But one factor that caused the fortunes of this sector to change completely was the COVID pandemic. A report by BARC India and Nielsen reveals that there has been a 30% increase in the time spent on education apps on smartphones since the lockdown. This growth meant that the daily average time that was spent on the Byju's app, increased from 70 minutes pre-lockdown to 91 minutes during the lockdown. This is why Byju's became one of the world's top 10 education apps downloaded during lockdown. But BYJU's is no longer a local player- it has now become a global player!

 For instance, in 2019, Byju's acquired US-based educational game system Osmo for $120 million. Unicorns are those companies that have a valuation of more than 1 billion USD. And now Byju's is no longer a unicorn- Its valuation now is $16.5 billion dollars! This happened because the world's biggest investors have invested in BYJU's. For instance, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. This money has enabled Byju's to acquire several other companies. For example, Byju's has spent more than $2 billion on acquisitions over a span of the last six months. In fact, when Byju's acquired the Great Learning in July for 600 million dollars, a joke made quite the rounds on social media- An that was- if you want to make quick money, just start discussing a math problem with one of your friends on a Zoom call In a few minutes, Byju's would even acquire the two of you! While this domination could have been achieved due to a superior product, BYJU's super fast growth has also been achieved by many unethical business practices. And such practices are not too rare in ed-tech companies. "...is an Indian start up launched in 2018." "...is suing critics." "The company has filed cases against those that have criticized them." "This is a multi, multi, mutli- million dollar company... ...and it needs to be exposed to criticism to see if it holds up. And right now, they're not doing that." 

Despite this controversy, White Hat Jr. got acquired by another company for 300 million dollars! The name of that company is Byju's And the problems which caused Whitehat Jr to be embroiled in controversies, can also be seen in the business practices of BYJU's. First is the toxic sales culture in the company as the example of Anushka showed. Let us try and understand that better. How does this start? First the sales pitch happens. The sales pitch is prepared and customized for every individual. So the sales pitch for you would be different, depending on your socio-economic status. Once users are convinced and the BYJU's app has been installed on their devices, they're asked to sign up for a 15-day free trial using a mobile number. Once Byju's has the mobile number, their sales team follows up, persuading parents to extend their child's use of the app through a paid subscription. This formula of pressuring to buy a BYJU's paid subscription has led to several families opting for loans. Conveniently, Byju's has formed partnerships with loan lending companies that facilitate selling such products to parents An investigation was held by The Ken (a news outlet), wherein they analyzed 110 consumer complaints, and found that found that almost half of the people were unaware they were being signed up for loans when they signed up for subscriptions.

 The average ticket size of the loans was INR66,000 and down payments ranged from INR1,000 to as high as INR60,000. A current Byju's sales agent has revealed in an interview that they never use words like loans or outstanding payments. Loan payments were referred to only as EMIs in order to avoid the parents from realizing that they are taking loans. Another tactic used by sales executives is convincing the parents that if they don't sign up for a BYJU's product, then the future of their child would be compromised. For instance, a mother of two in Nagpur told in an interview to the Rest of world, That she once got a call from the Byju's sales associate. They knew that her daughter had appeared for the exams of grade 10. She told the sales associate that she was interested in a crash course for NEET for her daughter, She was told by the sales executive that her daughter "didn't even have 95%" and "you're pursuing dreams of NEET?" When her daughter didn't know even the basics, how could a small town girl sit for a national level exam? When she mentioned that she'd been sending her daughter for tuition at a local institute, the sales executive instead pushed her to sign up for the Aakash Institute training center (now acquired by BYJU's) saying that a small, local institute wouldn't be able to prepare children for a national level exam. The sales executive of BYJU's has to opt for this strategy, owing to the pressure of the companies. 7 of its former employees say that the company uses a punishing internal culture. Employees were pressured to work incredibly long hours to hit their weekly sales target of INR 2,00,000. 

Some supervisors would even keep employees working till midnight." As one employee, Ritesh puts it, " you are asked to do anything just to close the deal. Earlier this year, Pradeep Ponia, an activist, posted a recording on YouTube of an alleged ex-employee being verbally assaulted by his manager. "Do you have the sense to work or not?" "I'll beat you up, I'm telling you. Don't get me worked up, idiot!" The second problem that customers face is- Asking for a refund in BYJU's is incredible arduous. Take the example of Anita Singh (based out of Gorakhpur, UP) During counselling session, a Counsellor told her to buy their course with a 15 days refund policy. Anita said that she bought the product but was not satisfied with the study material so she decided to get a refund. She called the counsellor multiple times but didn't get any response ever. Anita went on paying the EMI for the course for some time. But some time later, she was unable to do so. Since then she has been receiving threats and abusive calls from Byju's. For instance, Anita claims that over one of the calls, a BYJU's executive told her- "We will come inside your house and thrash you. Your location is being tracked by BYJU's. She'd be 'picked up' from her house." Anita's issue got resolved after she posted about this on LinkedIn and the post went viral. But not everyone is fortunate enough to get a resolution.

 For example, Prashant Walia who bought a Byju's subscription but cancelled it and didn't receive his refund. He tweeted about how the finance department at Byju's calls him 15-20 times a day for EMI It is worth mentioning here that not everyone is declined a refund. The Morning Context, a digital newspaper, carried out an investigation and found that many customers have got their money back, but after only a long and arduous process Third problem: BYJU's and other edtech companies use several misleading marketing strategies Take for example WhiteHat Jr, that was recently bought by Byju's. It claims to teach kids as young as 6-year-old things like coding, Artifical Intelligence, Machine Learning and Space Tech. The Economic Times has estimated that WhiteHat Jr may be spending between10- 15 crores in advertising on digital media platforms. In an ad, WhiteHat Jr advertised the success story of Wolf Gupta. People pointed out that the details of this success story (which later turned out to be fictional), kept changing Wolf Gupta's age keeps on changing between 9-14 years in different advertisements Just like his salary package kept changing between 1.20 crores to 150 crores. Wolf Gupta was obviously fictional and not a real person. But such a marketing strategy was basically targeting the insecurity of the parents that their child would be a misfit in the future digital world if they do not buy the Whitehat subscription. The campaign received a severe backlash on the social media. Activists like Pradeep Poonia even raised their voices against it But they were silenced by using legal defamation and by getting their social media accounts and posts removed "In total, they have taken down 16 videos, 2 Youtube channels, 2 Reddit accounts 1 Twitter handle... Quora was temporarily suspended.'

 Now the thing is that ed-tech companies as well as the private tuition centers in our colonies all follow the same marketing strategy of targeting the insecurities of the parents. They force the parents to believe that if they do not spend money on their children, then the future of their children would be compromised. Now ideally an effective education system would help address this problem. But unfortunately, the quality of the curriculum in our schools and colleges is a wide chasm away from the skills demanded in the private sector. Which is why nearly 80% of engineering graduates of India are considered unemployable One way of solving this problem is by improving the private input into the educational curriculum But that is just one solution. The problem of education in India is quite complex. We need more of both quality institutes as well as vocational centres And all of that will not happen overnight. We can only hope that our government addresses this problem. Because if changes are not brought to our education system, then families like that of Anushka's, who dream out their children's bright future, will get exploited by several companies. APJ Abdul Kalam who had made significant contributions to the field of education and science, had once said, "All of us do not have equal talent. But, all of us have an equal opportunity to develop our talents." Now the rise of digital education in India was believed to have ensured that everyone has the same chance of success. But in many ways, even digital education has created another divide in our system And while Dr Kalam believed in the power of education, he would have realized that that power cannot be realized till we ensure equity in society.