Education and training enterprises should be "big" and more "strong"——Interview with Dr. Yan Xuan, CEO of Wendu Education

Dr. Yan Xuan, CEO of Wendu Education

In 2021, the number of ordinary college graduates nationwide will reach 9.09 million, an increase of 350,000 year-on-year, a record high. In May this year, Wang Hui, director of the Department of College Students of the Ministry of Education, proposed that the scale of graduate school enrollment should be moderately expanded and more application-oriented and compound talents should be cultivated.

This has brought significant benefits to the postgraduate training market. Wendu Education Group (hereinafter referred to as "Wendu") is a leading enterprise in the field of examination and research training with a history of more than 20 years, and is also a comprehensive intelligent education industry group committed to the whole industry chain and internationalization, headquartered in Zhongguancun High-tech Park. There are more than 20 direct operating institutions in nearly 30 provinces and cities across the country, overseas direct operating institutions in Canada and other countries, more than 600 franchised institutions in the country, more than 2,000 employees of directly operated institutions, and more than 10 million trainees.

In 2019, Dr. Yan Xuan's MBK (Ambock Fund) completed its strategic investment in Wendu and became the largest shareholder of Wendu.

In recent years, financing in the field of education has continued to hit new highs. However, where should the financing be invested, whether to focus on brand marketing and create a huge communication; or to hire famous teachers to create a perfect teacher structure; or to expand the territory geographically, or to establish technical support in the background. In the end, which approach will help enterprises create long-term value without being buried in the smoke of competition, which greatly tests the value judgment and choice of capital and enterprise traders. Recently, a reporter from China Business Daily interviewed Dr. Yan Xuan, CEO of Wendu Education Group.

High touch (seamless touch) strategy

China Business Daily: As the CEO of Wendu, what do you think is your mission?

Yan Xuan: I came to Wendu with three missions: First, my interest and passion in education and the education industry. Because we were the beneficiaries of education ourselves, from my own upbringing, I was an educated person, I went to college in China, studied in the United States, studied at Harvard, Stanford Business School, all of which benefited me a lot. So I hope to be able to devote my limited energy, including my spare time, to education.

The second mission is to share what I have learned in my career for more than 30 years, summarize and summarize the experiences and lessons, including the detours I have taken. Wendu is a young company, and if there is better management experience and management philosophy, it can become better and stronger.

The third mission has to do with opportunities in the industry. Wendu is a leading enterprise in the education and training industry, very large, but not strong enough, we must look for opportunities to make it stronger, so that it can become a real teacher in the education and training industry.

China Business Daily: Why did MBK acquire Wendu in a holding model?

Yan Xuan: We are not particularly the same as other companies, as a buyout fund, MBK's operation method must be to hold, and most of the acquisitions are listed companies, and then through privatization, in the absence of public shareholders and transparency pressure to rectify, so that we can more adhere to long-term value, adhere to longer-term holding.

Generally speaking, mbK's exit period is 5 to 7 years, and in today's rapid economic development environment, 7 years is already a long-term shareholder. Unlike the post-investment management of general investment companies, MBK will send partners as CEOs of the acquired companies, which will strongly promote the change of the company's management philosophy and the realization of strategic goals, that is, the company's high touch (seamless contact) strategy.

How to make enterprises "strong"

China Business Daily: What kind of organization will Wendu be built into in the future?

Yan Xuan: Wendu's positioning should be a leading enterprise in the education and training industry, and now Wendu is big but not strong, and if it wants to become a real leading enterprise, it will be stronger. The reason why I say this is because Wendu started by joining, through the entry of franchisees to quickly expand the scale, the current is to directly operate as the main body, but then to give play to the potential and scale advantages of the group company, the footprint of the distribution point in the country feedback, the company's strong teachers and product research and development capabilities to play out, there is still a lot of work to be done.

From the perspective of the goal of digital transformation and the combination of online and offline, I hope that one day we will no longer need to distinguish between online and offline, as long as a student becomes our student, he can choose online or offline. In any place, any place, he can meet his learning needs.

China Business Daily: How do you define the "big" and "strong" of the education and training industry?

Yan Xuan: I think "strong" includes three aspects of the content: first of all, the standardization and standardization of the industry, the current examination and research training industry is still relatively scattered, the number of participants is very large, mainly small companies and individual enterprises, the level is uneven, and there is no unified standard for the services provided to students, which will cause many problems in this process. Only by achieving a relatively uniform level of teachers can the quality of education be guaranteed to a greater extent. Therefore, for Wendu, if it wants to become "strong", it is necessary to lead the industry to achieve standardization and standardization.

The second is that the industry needs to improve its ability to resist risks through integration. Last year, it was reported that hundreds of enterprises in the examination and research industry had closed down during the epidemic, and the failed enterprises were basically small workshop enterprises. Therefore, to lead this industry, it is necessary to make the industry stronger and stronger through integration.

The last is to provide better quality services from the perspective of serving the needs of students. At present, there are many students who are studying for graduate school and civil servants, they have common problems, but also have personalized needs, we must find out these problems and needs, on this basis, we can develop better products and services, and help students gain greater competitiveness.

"China Business Daily": On the one hand, it is necessary to standardize and standardize, on the other hand, it is also necessary to provide personalized products and services, how to make these two capabilities develop in tandem?

Yan Xuan: Yes, this is a particularly big challenge for enterprises. At present, we have up to 5.5 million college students who are interested in studying for graduate school every year, more than 4 million people actually participate in remedial studies, and about 3.7 million people take exams, and these numbers are still increasing. Such a large group, even if they do not participate in the postgraduate training, will buy teaching materials, from which you can also find out a lot of common needs.

Secondly, the development of Internet technology solves the problem of the possibility of meeting individual needs in terms of "cost". Due to the development of online technology, the personalized needs of many students can also be integrated, so as to achieve "batch satisfaction", similar to the "scale customization" of manufacturing enterprises.

Digital transformation and industrialization of education and training

China Business Daily: What level do you think the current digital transformation of the education and training industry is at? What are Wendu's next acquisition plans?

Yan Xuan: Most of the industry is in its infancy, and the epidemic has accelerated the process, and there will be a strong sense of desire and urgency in the seamless connection between online and offline. But at the same time, digital transformation is also a big challenge for enterprises: on the one hand, the company's management must reach a consensus on the integration of online and offline systems. On the other hand, enterprises should invest and match relatively large resources. The former implies a change in management philosophy, while the latter requires the innovation or refactoring of business models through technology, but this is not something that small businesses can do.

Generally speaking, we acquire the entire business, including its faculty, campus, and office space, and some of the acquisitions are for what we used to call franchisees. They have achieved a certain success in the market for us, and have also achieved a certain market share, and have a certain market position in the minds of students, parents, and teachers, and we have brought them together through acquisitions.

We have a department that specializes in mergers and acquisitions, and we will also acquire companies that we think are relatively high-quality from outside into the big ship of Wendu. At present, the pace of our mergers and acquisitions has slowed down a bit, because a while ago we acquired more companies, and now we hope to be able to integrate and digest them some more, so that our management level can keep up with the speed of our acquisitions.

"China Business Daily": The industrialization of education and training is a hot topic at present, how can capital help the industrialization of education?

Yan Xuan: I think that the industrialization of education and training is not the only goal of making profits as the education and training enterprises. In fact, the entry of capital has helped the standardization of the education and training industry, stimulated innovation, and accelerated the improvement of teaching quality and student satisfaction. Because capital is more effective, it will study how to make an industry better, because its revenue and profits come from scale, norms, student satisfaction, and sustainable development of the industry.

In fact, many industries in China, are because of the entry of capital, leading to the integration of the industry, coupled with the government's guidance and corresponding policies, to achieve earth-shaking changes, such as airlines, thirty or forty years ago China's aircraft accident rate is very high, but under the guidance of the government, small airlines have been merged into the big airlines, the formation of our current four major aviation groups, on the one hand to help supervision, on the other hand, with the scale and funds, you can in the maintenance of aircraft, A lot of work is done on the training of personnel and the control of safety, so now Chinese airlines have become one of the safest industries in the world, which is the power of capital. Capital through the promotion of the integration and standardization of the industry, so that the industry can be more healthy to develop, this is also MBK in the wendu to do, is to make the wendu bigger and stronger, and then on this basis to promote the education and training industry standardization, standardization, high-quality service and sustainable development.

At the same time, it should be noted that the education and training of graduate school and civil servants is faced with adults aged 21 to 22, whose choices are more rational, and they hope to stand out in their future careers by improving their learning ability and employability. This is very different from over-tuition and competition for adolescents and children.

"China Business Daily": In the education and training industry, everyone pays more attention to "famous teachers", but Wendu should be standardized and standardized, how do you think about the relationship between teaching and research and famous teachers?

Yan Xuan: First of all, the standardization and standardization of teaching and research is an important prerequisite for the digital transformation of enterprises. Secondly, for an education company, it is not dependent on and should not rely on a few famous teachers to support, because the ultimate appeal of students is to enhance their learning ability and enhance their competitiveness in the examination process. Therefore, the course of the famous teacher may be wonderful, or it may be gag and tell a few jokes, but if it does not really bring about the improvement and help of ability, it is essentially meaningless.

Therefore, famous teachers should not become the strategic direction of the industry and enterprises, on the contrary, a good enterprise should provide a very good platform for all teachers, so that they can play their potential, so that everyone can become a famous teacher, so as to serve more students.

Boss cheats

1. What kind of institution will Wendu be built into in the future?

The positioning of Wendu should be a leading enterprise in the education and training industry, and now Wendu is big but not strong, and if it is to truly lead the enterprise, it will be stronger. The reason why I say this is because Wendu started by joining, and quickly expanded the scale through the entry of franchisees, but then we must give full play to the potential and scale advantages of the group company, feedback the footprint of the distribution point in the country, and give full play to the strong teaching ability and product research and development ability of the enterprise, and there is still a lot of work to be done.

From a vision point of view, our ultimate goal is to hope that our trainees can feel the power of education anywhere, anywhere, at any time.

2. How does capital help the industrialization of education and training?

I believe that the industrialization of education is not the only goal of making profits as the only goal of education and training enterprises. In fact, the entry of capital has helped the standardization of the teaching and research industry, stimulated innovation, and accelerated the improvement of teaching quality and student satisfaction. Because capital is more effective, it will study how to make an industry better, because its revenue and profits come from scale, norms, student satisfaction, and sustainable development of the industry.

depth

Businesses have no culture, and all strategies are fake

Every time you talk to your boss, the reporter asks the same question, "Do you think there are any other important questions that haven't been asked?" ”

Corporate culture is exactly at this time Yan Xuan himself took the initiative to put forward, he told reporters, "Western management believes that corporate culture can eat strategy as breakfast, an enterprise without culture, all strategies are fake." ”

Therefore, in the process of reshaping Wendu, he pays more attention to the mission and pays more attention to establishing the company's values and corporate culture.

"A company's values and their deeper meaning are more important than what it's doing right now, it's culture that shapes strategy, not strategy that shapes culture and ultimately inspires creativity in the organization." In the past, many private enterprises said that the communication culture, collaborative culture and team spirit of the enterprise may not exist, relying solely on the charm of the entrepreneur alone, which will make the strategy of the enterprise produce great uncertainty. Yan Xuan said.

In Yan Xuan's view, "if information is power and power, then, through the transparency and sharing of information, improve the collaborative ability of enterprises, let more people participate in the management process, rely on open information to complete work more efficiently, reduce duplication of labor, and avoid waste of resources and time, which is what corporate culture should do." ”

It can be said that in the process of wendu's evolution from "big" to "strong", what enterprises have to do is the standardization and standardization of teaching and research, the information sharing platform, the seamless integration of online and offline, including the digital transformation of the enterprise as a whole, in essence, what is to be completed is the sharing and collaboration of information, which is the content that corporate culture can be connected.

Yan Xuan believes that "achieving a high degree of integration of corporate strategy and culture will bring multiple values to enterprises." First, it can help enterprises attract more excellent talents to stay, so that most people feel happy and comfortable, have motivation for work, and have the interest and passion to create. The second is to help enterprises establish correct values, what an enterprise believes, what employees believe, and what bottom line everyone keeps together can be confirmed by each other in the work, and ultimately focus on the strategic growth of enterprises and employees. The third is to help enterprises further clarify the value they provide to users and students, and truly teach people, because in the field of education, they must be excellent in order to help others. ”

Indeed, education and training is a "silent" industry, the culture of the enterprise is directly reflected in the mental outlook of employees (teachers), the spiritual outlook of the teacher will directly affect the students, and this value of the enterprise will invisibly affect the value choice of many students. For the education and training industry, this is a complete chain of value transmission.

The education and training industry that Wendu is engaged in is precisely for those young people who have received general higher education and continue to pursue self-improvement, and these people will be the backbone of the country in the future. This makes the seemingly "retreat" content of mission, values, and corporate culture have an extraordinary meaning.

Source: China Business Network