Построение стратегии по выходу ЭдТех компаний в развивающиеся рынки: ресурсный подход

The technological development of the world of the 21st century affects every day more and more areas of society; the educational sphere is no exception. As an industry that cannot function without the Internet, the edtech market is attracting more and more new interested companies and organizations around the world, ready to enter and occupy this niche. According to the research agency Grand View Research, the edtech market is growing at an unrelenting pace and from 2020 to 2027, the average annual growth rate is expected to be about 18.1%. Thus, if in 2020 the volume of the world edtech market was 89.07 billion, then by 2027 this figure, according to the agency’s forecasts, will reach 285.23 billion. (Grand View Research, 2020). On the other hand, considering the report of another agency, namely HolonIq, we can conclude that the development results of the edtech industry may be even higher than expected. HolonIq (HolonIq, 2021) predicts that the edtech market will grow at an unrelenting pace and will already reach $ 404 billion by 2025 of total global spends, with an average annual growth rate of about 16, 3%. Expenditures on the edtech industry will amount to about 7.3 trillion dollars and will amount to more than 5.5% of the world education market.
The development of new technologies, the widespread use of the Internet and the addition of interactivity to all spheres of the functioning of the global society are further fueling interest in the edtech industry. Education is no longer geared towards the study of classical postulates and the application of various technologies in universities and schools. Thanks to edtech, people from all over the world can learn various sciences, skills, disciplines from the comfort of their homes. The ubiquitous digitalization of any content and activity provides edtech companies with great opportunities to operate and find new solutions for living in a changing world.
Modern edtech companies use various methods and resources to ensure their competitive advantage, operating on local and entering emerging markets. Countries that are emerging markets in the modern world represent suitable and promising conditions for the development and operation of high-tech educational companies.
However, why is digital education the best alternative to the modern? Edtech has a number of advantages that allow technology giants to be successful in today’s market. One of these advantages is the reduction of time spent on education and the consumption of resources. Students do not need to attend lectures, and they can study wherever they want, without leaving home. Moreover, most modern courses and educational disciplines can be mastered for a low fee or free, in comparison with traditional teaching methods (Ra-Kurs). Another important advantage is the ease of learning; under such conditions, students are less susceptible to stress and with great
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pleasure assimilate the information received, as some studies show (Alkhalaf, 2012). As well as another large number of various advantages, which the digital education brings to our lives.
However, despite the globally positive picture of the development of the edtech industry, there are countries and regions where this industry is developing unevenly and with varying success. While North America is the leader in the educational technology market, and Western Europe, Latin America, China and India are growing rapidly with an ambition to become industry leaders, a large number of developing countries are lagging behind these regions in many ways, despite their rapid growth as well developed countries (Lynch, 2018). Considering Eastern Europe and Africa in particular, one can immediately see a picture of lagging behind developed countries not only in terms of economic development, but also in the edtech industry. In the African region, not all children and adults have access, not only access to the Internet and education, but to clean drinking water, this picture is obvious. In many African countries, there are no policies at all aimed at digitalizing education and supporting the edtech industry. However, despite this fact, Africa is the country with the fastest growing use of mobile phones, which are among the main attributes and carriers of the edtech content industry (Rollmann, 2018).
Considering all of the above, understanding how the educational technology industry is developing, why it is evolving unevenly in different countries, and how companies from developed countries can help the progress of this industry in developing countries is important in obtaining an overall vision of the global digitalization and reinvention of classical education. The relevance of this study is due to its versatility and modernity. A resource-based view framework reinforces the interest in technology educational companies. Further, it is necessary to develop a wider range of resources that technology companies can use to build their strategies, especially to enter emerging markets. As the sphere of our life is becoming more and more distant from the traditional way of life, we need to look more broadly at the development of companies from the point of view of a strategic approach, and understand how RBV can complement and improve companies’ strategy.
Therefore, the research question in this work is the following wording:
What resources and competencies are crucial for educational technology companies to enter emerging markets?
The object of the study is edtech companies, and the research subject is resources of edtech companies.
The aim of the study is to develop recommendations for companies in the educational industry when building a strategy for entering emerging markets.
To achieve this goal, the following tasks were set:
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identifying the resources of companies that are key in building a strategy for entering emerging markets;
 revealing the resources of companies that provide them with a competitive advantage;
conducting a comparative analysis of edtech companies from developed and developing countries;
determining the relations between the resources available to the company in the home market, with the resources that the company needs in the new (developing) market;
discovering the most popular entry modes for companies to enter countries with an emerging economy.
The main research method was a multiple case study, primary data collection method is structured expert interview conducted in the form of an online survey and delivered through corporate communication channels of edtech companies. This method was taken because of its ease of use and minimization of the complexity in obtaining a representative sample and a wide coverage of respondents. The secondary data collection method is content analysis, and the auxiliary descriptive method is comparative analysis.
The type of study is qualitative and exploratory, as the research question is currently not well studied and presents an opportunity to introduce novelty.
Nowadays, many edtech companies, from small to large, use a variety of tools and resources to help them penetrate the global arena and achieve positive results. However, how do these companies conquer the market, due to which small organizations, start-ups become global and successful? What gives them the opportunity to penetrate foreign markets and conduct their activities there? Of course, price competition will not be enough, some other competencies and resources are needed, perhaps unique, which are inimitable, difficult to create and imitate. What resources and competencies should be used to achieve a competitive advantage in the framework of strategic development? After all, a large number of companies enter the market and fail, others become leaders, and the edtech industry continues to grow rapidly.
There is little research on the tools and resources than help edtech companies to penetrate the global arena and achieve positive results. This is a real research gap that is planned to be filled in this study. If this gap did not exist, then edtech companies would understand how to compete in the market. Most edtech companies are almost the same type and do not have an understanding of how to use the necessary resources to gain a competitive advantage and become unique. The situation is similar with the gaming industry, where a large number of companies are developing in similar directions and offering similar products. A very small number of companies are known in local markets, not to mention global ones. For example, if we consider the Russian market, then
from the language courses we can single out English First and Skyeng. However, this does not
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mean that there are no other companies involved in teaching English. In St. Petersburg alone, there are dozens of them, in all of Russia, there are thousands of them, but they can be said to have drowned in the gray mass of companies like them, going through a stagnation period. This can lead either to the collapse of the company, or, if company finds its unique resource and offers it on the market in the form of the same unique offer, they with a greater possibility could achieve success.