Project Background
A leading global provider of online Executive Education sought to evaluate opportunities for geographic expansion in select markets across Southeast Asia and the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. The objective was to gain a nuanced understanding of the Higher Education and Executive Education landscapes in these regions and assess their suitability for introducing new products and services.
Evalueserve applied its Go-to-Market (GTM) research support framework to deliver actionable insights into local market dynamics, competitive positioning, and strategic fit. This enabled the client to make informed decisions on prioritizing markets and shaping an effective geographic expansion strategy.
The Challenge
The client wanted to understand if an expansion within these geographies is feasible from a business and operational perspective.
The client wanted to identify the most critical market dynamics in terms of:
- Market size and potential – prioritization of specific countries based on a particular list of indicators
- Demand-side consumer trends:
- Consumer views on online learning (opportunities and barriers),
- Affinity to different types of learning and duration of learning,
- Affinity to specific fields of study or domains,
- Income levels and affinity to pay premium prices for Executive Education
- Affinity to local or international Executive Education players and programs; any brand preferences.
- From a supply side, the Client wanted to understand and have a detailed view of the Higher Education and Executive Education environment in selected countries
The Solution
Evalueserve catered to stakeholders from different functions: business development, partnerships, content development team, product development team, marketing, and research.
Considering the large audience, Evalueserve used its Go-to-Market Research Support Framework to provide a holistic view of the target geographies.
Evalueserve approached the project in a phased manner:
Exhaustive country landscaping, comparing countries on a select number of indicators: the size of the economy, public spending on education, disposable income, size of the labor force aged 25-45, internet penetration and infrastructure for online learning, size of the student population, English adoption, number of universities (split by private vs. public; international rankings), student outflows, etc.
Based on the above, Evalueserve provided recommendations on countries for which a deep dive was necessary.
Country deep-dives focused on understanding the Higher Education and ExEd markets from a supply and demand perspective. Evalueserve used a combination of desk research and primary interviews (SME interviews) to understand the as-is state of the market and provide a 360-degree view of the whole market in terms of consumer (student) behavior, government initiatives, legal and regulatory framework, competitive and institutional landscape, major offerings and price benchmarking, significant trends, and any tailwinds or headwinds that could help the Client better position itself in the market.
An executive summary included main insights, a market maturity assessment with a possible ranking of the countries in scope (priority of expansion), and potential entry barriers for each of the countries.
To deliver on the project objectives, Evalueserve combined robust desk and secondary research with a series of expert interviews and targeted primary research to validate findings and address information gaps.
The outcome
The comprehensive country reports enabled the client to critically assess the potential value of targeting these geographies for future expansion. The data and insights helped challenge and disprove some of the client's earlier assumptions about market viability in the selected regions. While certain market signals indicated that an expansion could strengthen the company’s global footprint, the study ultimately revealed that deeper, more focused research would be necessary to justify such a move—one of Evalueserve’s key recommendations.
As a result, the regions were deprioritized in the client's expansion roadmap, allowing them to redirect focus toward core markets and better position themselves in more strategically aligned geographies.
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Overview & Impact
The Global EdTech Player leveraged Evalueserve’s research framework to evaluate expansion opportunities in Southeast Asia and MENA, leading to a strategic shift in focus towards more viable markets.
