With COVID declared over by WTO, the challenge of going back to business normal has just started. With high inflation driving up costs, labor not returning to work readily, coupled with the constant fear that the next pandemic and lockdown is lurking around the corner, what can small businesses that rely on manpower do to survive or even thrive? The simple answer of course is to automate your business processes, go online, use IT, sell online,...etc, etc.
At first glance, it is easier said than done, given that small businesses usually lack the resources or support needed to take on such enterprise. Fortunately, things had changed during COVID. Many workers, teachers, students are now familiar with video conferencing tools for meetings and learning, ordering food deliveries online, shopping for favorite items during lockdown. Things might have pivoted back to the physical world somewhat with the opening up, but the general trend of conducting business, leisure and learning activities online will continue. More platform solutions have also surfaced recently to provide easy on-ramp for traditional, non IT savvy business owners to set up shops online, automate their operations and deliver their business value.
Training and tuition centers management system is a good start for those owners in the training industry. A good system should offer you a complete solution to move your entire operation online or to stay with a hybrid model of both online/on premise. It should have the following functionalities:
Hosing your own e-commerce homepage to list and sell your courses, be it online, on premise and VOD (video on demand).
Wide range of payment gateway options for your local environment, eg credit cards, bank transfer, e wallets.
Online scheduling. Easy and automatic matching of student and teacher's schedule, matching teacher's skill to a specific course by a training center, rescheduling make-up classes, replacing teachers on sick leave,...etc.
Real time business reports. Bookings, revenue, payment status, month-end payment reports by teachers. Consolidated across multiple training centers for effective and instant decision making.
Online course assignments and progress reports. Ability to send assignments online to students, and completed assignments back for grading. Progress reports can then be generated for students and parents' review.
Integrated live classrooms, eliminating the need to sign up 3rd party services. This is optional if you only want on-premise physical class.
Marketing tools to help you post for social media marketing.
Finally, but equally important is that the platform should be easy to use and hosted online. No software to install or manage, no maintenance. Just sign up and ready to go.
Many platforms available in the market offers Learning Management Systems (LMS) to manage students, teachers registration, payment, learning progress, transaction records.....etc. If you also want to sell their courses online, ie setting up an e commerce website, you might want to make sure that the platform also allows you to list your courses and the facilities to complete the transaction. Having an integrated online classrooms also help to reduce the amount of administrative coordination in setting up classes, login passwords and schedules. All said, it completely removes the dependency on human intervention in taking orders, arranging schedule, collecting payment, keeping transaction records and teachers payment. This increase in productivity applies equally well for existing offline physical classes environment without online classes. In summary, be sure to look for a training and tuition centers management system that allows you to set up an online presence and let you operate your business completely online (with online classes) if needed.
So what other considerations are there to further reduce costs? Of course the most obvious is platform fees! Again, most platforms offer monthly packages that cater to light, medium and large users, which might work in most cases. What if your needs falls in between the packages and you feel like you are being overcharged for services that you need not use. This is where a scalable pricing mechanism is more attractive, that is pay for only what you need. If you need 20 teacher accounts, pay for 20. If you need 21 teacher accounts, why pay for the next available 50 account package?
Seems too good to be true that such platform exists? At Aculearn, you can get all the above services and the most amazing thing is that you can start at the entry package for FREE! Yes, FREE! Base package starts at US$2.99 per month, with US$1.99 for every additional teacher account.
Technology is a deflationary tool. It increases productivity, reduces costs and human dependency. In Aculearn's case, it is clearly the case.
Sign up now at www.aculearn.com.