What promoted the Inception of GUS Education in India?
We are a full-stack organization housing a range of digital marketing and operational servicesparamount in the education sector in India and globally.
We aimed at redefining digital marketing for the education sector in India, and this led to the inception of GUS Education India. Here, we strongly believe in technology & innovation to support the brands/universities. We focused on expanding our service portfolio by providing digital-first solutions to the brands/universities globally from India because of the rich quality talent available here to run our business equirements. We hired experienced digital marketing staff with an entrepreneurial mindset to initiate the migration of functions from GUS UK operations to Hyderabad.
Once we started our operations in India, the availability & accessibility of exceptional talent led us to set up other functions to grow our business in India. We succeeded in attracting a lot of stakeholders/universities to reach out to us to set up their functions here in India.
What was the thought behind the name of the company?
GUS Education India (GEI) is a serving wing of ed-tech giant Global University Systems (GUS) based in Europe. We wanted to carry the brand lineage of the parent company and believed in driving operational excellence from India. Hence the name GUS Education India (GEI).
What has the journey been like for the company since its formation?
March 2018, GUS Education India (GEI) had set up operations in India to support universities, educational institutions across the globe to provide world-class innovative digital solutions. We started our operations with mere 100 employees and today are at 1200+ continuing. I attribute GEIs tremendous growth to our exceptionally talented employees, who come with an entrepreneurial mindset, and the services we offer across various functions. Providing services across geographies, flexible working shifts for employees, etc. are added to our roadmap to achieve desired milestones year-on-year. With the availability of an exceptional talent pool in India, we got the opportunity to scale our functions within our business. Today, we are a full-service digital marketing firm that delivers scalable online marketing services to Global University Systems’ associated brands. As a frontrunner in building digital eminence for a fleet of academic brands, GUS Education India is a rapidly growing organization that believes in achieving success through innovation.
Today, GUS Education India (GEI) focuses on stabilizing multi-fold growth, ensuring seamless functioning of the organization, and scaling up systems and processes. We plan to emerge as an ed-tech leader in the Indian market by shifting the focus from cost center to revenue-generating organization.
What according to you what makes a company the best place to work?
Multiple factors make an organization a great place to work. We implemented a few innovative measures to overcome challenges that set us at par with the organizations in a similar sector.
Ensuring employees are more confident in speaking and dealing with multiple tasks and providing them a diverse and inclusive workforce with opportunities for a progressive career is the need of the hour across many organizations in India.
GUS Education India is a Great Place to Work-Certified™ with a diverse workforce, having 40% of women employees in addition to regional diversity. We structured the organization with an entrepreneurial culture to help talent achieve their goals with maximum potential. We Built an open-door policy to make it convenient for the employees to share their valuable inputs and suggestions to improve performance and the work environment. We at GUS Education India (GEI) strongly believe in a culture of trust, hence enabling the ‘WE’ before ‘I’ model to encourage employees to achieve the common goal of providing world-class innovative solutions to customers. We ensure business continuity by aligning innovative solutions for providing successful business strategies.
What is the process followed by GUS Education India when offering its services?
We house a range of skilled teams, catering to the digital and service needs of academic brands across the globe. We provide a variety of digital marketing and operational services to support our academic partners that are paramount in the education sector today. These services include Corporate Services, Digital Marketing, CRM & Analytics, Market Intelligence, and Product Development, Design, Operations, Contact Centre Operations, and Global Student Recruitment, Admissions, and Central Shared Services. We believe in success through innovation and digital diversity.
The process of aligning on customer requirements includes working on pre-aligned systems & processes and diligently following designed plans in agreement with the customer, strategizing and executing innovative solutions to the universities/educational institutions. We are the fastest-growing company in the sector, and the possibility of this growth is on the exceptional talent pool available in India, especially in Hyderabad. The quality of people, the exposure & experience they come with, help us in providing world-class solutions to universities and institutions. We provide customized business solutions for every customer by executing data-driven strategies and ensuring the delivery of the most viable solutions with qualitative results.
What is the work culture like at GUS Education India?
GUS Education India (GEI) has been identified as a High-Trust, High-Performance Culture™ organization by an esteemed assessment body like Great Place to Work institute. The two prominent categories in which GEI scored the highest were Credibility of Management and Pride. GEI took this survey for the first time and, the TRUST INDEX© Score stood at a stellar 78%. Today GEI is a Great Place to Work-Certified organization with an inclusive and diverse workforce, having 40% of women employees in addition to regional diversity. We structured the organization with an entrepreneurial culture to help talent achieve their goals with maximum potential.
This coveted certification is a remarkable win for GEIites as it validates the fact that we at GEI have been able to cultivate a workplace where employees take pride in working for the organization and acknowledge and appreciate the credibility of management. This certification is a reward of dedication, perseverance, and faith in GEI’s potential. We are a ‘Great Workplace to work’ today because we have great employees at the workplace. We implemented successful innovations and processes to bring the team stronger together.
Built an open-door policy to make it convenient for the employees to share their valuable inputs and suggestions to improve performance and work environment.
We strongly believe in a culture of trust, hence enabling the ‘WE’ before ‘I’ model to encourage employees to achieve the common goal of providing world-class innovative solutions to customers.
We ensured business continuity in the most challenging times by re-structuring our operating model and aligning innovative solutions for providing successful strategies
How has Shashi Jaligama helped steer the company forward?
I have worked with Global University Systems (GUS) for more than 5 years in London. The exposure and experience gathered while working in UK & India for all these years has helped me in understanding both sides of the world, implementing the best practices into GUS Education India’s business, and achieving potential growth. The years of experience have helped me understand the type of workforce required to scale and grow an organization in India. I have self-molded myself to get the best work out of people, provide confidence and support within the employees, also make sure our people grow with us. In the last few years, we have won several awards & accolades showcasing our strength and scale in the sector. We now plan to emerge as an ed-tech leader in the Indian market by shifting the focus from cost center to revenue-generating organization.
What does the future look like for GUS Education India in the coming years?
We at GUS Education India (GEI) are looking forward to a promising future with innovations & disruptions at the forefront of our business operations. With the existing growth we showcased by providing the right talent & support to our internal brands (universities/educational institutions), we are now ready to extend our world-class digital solutions/services to more external brands based on the knowledge and expertise we have garnered over the last few years. The COVID-19 scenario in 2 years has taught us that online is the way to go – From student-facing roles, teaching, attracting external brands, etc., to student recruitment. Digital has now become the new normal for us to showcase our potential and increase our opportunities in the EdTech industry.