Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Insights from a Successful Businesswoman in Shanghai's Education Industry

The education industry in China is a dynamic and ever-evolving industry that offers both challenges and rewarding opportunities for entrepreneurs. This essay explores the journey of a Korean education owner who has been in the Chinese education industry for more than eight years. Together we will discuss her motivations, business strategies, and thoughts on tackling the changing education landscape. The essay also delves into exploring different topics such as target consumers, value chain, profit model, and the business and societal impacts of education.

Before starting her own business, the interviewee already had experience in education working as a teacher. She loved teaching but did not find solely teaching to be satisfying, she wanted more of a challenge. This motivated her to start her own business. According to the interviewee, starting a business in the education sector has relatively low barriers of entry. The only startup costs needed were essentially labor costs. As she had previous experience as a teacher, she was confident in her own skillsets and decided to focus on the promotion of her business instead of conducting research about the market. Her initial promotion strategy included reaching out to previous consumers (mostly Korean parents) through group chats and promoting through Korean newspapers, a target consumer segment she was familiar with. She mentioned that despite the early turbulences, a healthy mindset really helped her overcome her challenges. Her mantra was that sometimes “meaningful lessons may come from failures”. Eight years on, she mentioned that her business has had a year-on-year growth rate of around 30% except for during the Covid-19 pandemic.

After learning about the background of her business, I asked questions regarding the business strategies that can be applied to the entire market, beyond the niche education industry in China. She mentioned that one of the most crucial lessons is to always understand your target consumers’ needs and to think from their perspectives. For instance, as a Korean teacher, most of her connections were in the Korean community. Naturally, her target consumers are bilingual students and specifically, Korean and International students who attend international schools in Shanghai. However, each of these groups wanted different things and she had to customize her offerings accordingly as well. One example of such is that Korean students generally prefer group classes while international students prefer individual classes that are bespoke to meet each individual’s needs. When teachers and resources are limited, it can be challenging to decide which offering and segment to target.

Although she described her business to be economically profitable, there are still challenges that she faces. Some challenges include the effects of the pandemic on her target consumers as well as the over-arching legal challenges in Chinese jurisdiction. At the moment, her biggest challenge is the effect the pandemic had on her target consumers, Korean students. Not only had many Korean students and families returned to Korea after the devastating Shanghai lockdowns, but there was an overall decrease in international students as well. Decreased rates in the number of students were not the only problem. During the pandemic, due to changes in local laws, tutoring companies were banned from operating if they were owned by a foreigner. This directly impacted her business and in order to get a new license, she needed to update her certificate from a tutoring service into a school’s license. These challenges made it harder for her to expand her educational business as compared to if she were to do the same in Korea. Regarding expansion, she also mentioned the idea of trust as well. Because she wants to maintain high-quality education in her business, it is hard for her to find trustworthy co-workers and teachers. She mentioned this is the biggest flaw in her current business model as she believes that a “good” model is one when the owner does not have to dedicate too much effort or time.

Lastly, she left some tips on how to succeed in the educational field. In order to stay updated, she stressed the importance of talking to parents and students on a daily basis and planning classes based on their needs. She also recommended using various online channels that can attract more target consumers not only as a way of promotion but also as a tool to stay updated on the latest trends in the field.