ACCELERATED MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

Faculty: Pramath Raj Sinha

Final Assignment | Leadership Track
12 February 2023

Case Study

Indus is an online educator imparting professional skills (aka leadership skills) training to
adults.

The five-year-old organization offers blended live (synchronous) and self-paced

(asynchronous) courses and training to address corporate India's spiralling problem of poor
employability, inadequate leadership, and an ill-equipped workforce. These products target
junior and middle-level employees of 120 mid and large-sized organizations, which make up
Indus' clientele.

Indus' mission is to equip learners with the cognitive-behavioural-social skills required to

survive and succeed in the modern workplace and prepare them for future jobs. Infosys
founder NR Narayana Murthy has spoken about his concerns over the Indian education
system and underlined a need for change. Murthy advocated the importance of questioning
and dealing with the disconnect between pure academics and applied education. Indus agrees
with this philosophy and believes skills education for the workplace should be rooted in
behavioural skills with a strong component of application orientation and a chance to practice
these skills.

It saw massive growth during the COVID-19 pandemic when institutions and organizations
shut their physical offices and campuses. Realizing that technology had made it possible for
learning to take place anytime, anywhere, and at all ages, students, working professionals,
homemakers and senior citizens logged in to boost their knowledge in alignment with their
personal and professional goals.

In its first year, the organization targeted colleges and universities to help their students get
employed. The courses were on topics such as Writing Professionally, Solving Problems,
Finding Mentors and Acing Interviews. However, these did not succeed in universities due to
limited interest in professional skills with this segment.

The students and higher education institutions preferred training in technical skills like
Digital Marketing, AI/ML, Data Science, etc., and functional skills like Product
Development, Business Analytics, Finance, etc. They believed these skills were more
tangible and offered better job prospects. Hence, Indus soon withdrew from the college and
universities segment. They continued to work with corporate clients looking to equip their
employees with better collaboration, communication and problem-solving skills. That market
for them grew by 100% year on year.

Of course, there were other challenges. Learner feedback revealed that social and emotional
aspects of the learning process needed much more application-oriented exercises, peer
interaction and contextualization. Working professionals often needed help to complete the
asynchronous courses in described timelines. They and their organizations could not clearly
quantify how Indus programs and course material helped them. Indus recognized that it's
vital to promote the mental well-being of learners while ensuring that learning outcomes are
met. Indus also found that corporations often demanded high customization in training their
employees, not recognizing that the skills being taught are sector and domain agnostic.

Indus was acquired by the $500-million higher education juggernaut Front Foot, in 2022.
They have extensive experience in technical and functional upskilling with online certificate,
degree and executive programs offered in partnership with universities from India and
worldwide.

Front Foot hopes Indus can integrate its professional skills training into the technical and
functional skills training to make the Front Foot offering holistic. This is exactly what
students, professionals and organizations are looking for to get employed for the first time,
promoted in their existing companies or be able to switch career paths.

Front Foot isn't interested in stepping out of the adult learning segment. They have infused
nearly $50 million into Indus to enable them to add the value they are looking for and
support them in becoming a profitable and sustainable business by the end of FY 23-24.

Meanwhile, India's edtech industry, valued at $750 million in 2020 and predicted to reach $4
billion by 2025, appears to be in crisis. The sudden development and fast rise in the
pandemic came as a tailwind for edtech organizations in India. The projected market size led
to India's edtech industry to punch above its weight.
Edtech has made education more personalized, affordable, equitable (bridging the gap
between the rich and marginalized income group), and accessible. The skyrocketing growth
made it an attractive sector for investments, hiring was done for the anticipated growth and to
maintain a competitive advantage. The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digitalization.
While Edtech is essential to fill in the gap of quality teachers and accessibility of quality
education in the remotest part of the country, learners and students are looking to be back in
physical classrooms and learning spaces.

Besides how learners feel, there is a slowdown in EdTech funding. The funding winter can
be attributed to a global recession, lower valuations for tech stocks, inflation, and geopolitical
instability in many countries. Many familiar with the education sector and funding cycles say
the funding environment is expected to stabilize in the coming 10-12 months, allowing start-
ups to extend their funding runway. Experts believe recent acquisitions in the space will
strengthen the product portfolios and fill up the tech gap and customer acquisition. Experts
believe edtech is at a very nascent stage with a lot of room for innovations and outcomes that
will positively impact the lives of millions.

To this end, Indus is focusing its attention on scaling its offering and reaching out to more
unique segments of learners. However, organizations don't welcome pure online models with
the pandemic receding. If Indus looks at individual learners, they are based in too many
locations to be brought together for regular in-person sessions. Limiting themselves to a few
sites will restrict their offering to fewer people. It is now struggling with where and how to
grow.

The Prompt

You have received a sharp, focused directive from the CEO of Front Foot: “Prioritise and
launch Indus offline.” Your team has already created a logic tree and developed a workplan
on where Indus finds itself currently. Now that you have a pointed ask from the CEO, the
leadership at Front Foot would like your group to re-think your logic tree and treat the
following as the first sub-levels of your revised logic tree:
• Why should Indus do this?
• How should Indus do this?
• What are the resources required and available to do this?
Use all your learnings from all the different AMP Tracks and your own experience and
insights to answer the questions above. All groups are expected to carry out their analysis
of the case study and identify the solutions. You can use primary or secondary data to
research on the given situation, conduct interviews to tap into similar cases elsewhere –
across industries – or study academic papers and reports available on the topic. Please feel
free to use a wide range of sources and references that facilitate your group in creating
solutions.

Instructions

• This is a group assignment. All Learners will work in the same groups as before
(Annexure 1).
• All groups will make a PowerPoint Presentation on the assignment which must be
uploaded and submitted by 11: 59 PM on 24 March 2023. In addition to the
PowerPoint Presentation, each group will submit their elevator pitch – of one line –
emerging out of the assignment. Please be as creative – and specific – as you like, as
a group. The form to submit both the presentation and the elevator pitch is attached
here: https://forms.office.com/r/XiKD4A1DXy
• Based on their submitted presentation, each group will make a live, in-class
presentation on 25 March 2025. Please be formally dressed while appearing on the
screen with your camera on. The slot assigned to each group will be shared separately
over an email, closer to the day of presentations.
 • During the live in-class assessment:
✓ Prepare and use a high-quality PowerPoint Presentation
✓ A total of 15 minutes will be assigned to each group. 6 minutes and 30
seconds will be given for making live in-class presentations in front of the
Jury and the Academic Team, and the remaining 8 minutes and 30 seconds
will be allotted to questions from the Faculty, Jury and Academic Team and a
round of discussions. Points will be deducted if the live presentation is not
completed within the given time.
✓ All group members are encouraged to speak and present. If any members find
themselves unable to be present on the day of the presentation – due to work
commitments or otherwise - they are expected to inform the Academic Team
at least two days before the session, that is, by 11: 00 AM on 23 March 2023.
• Each learner is encouraged to bring all their learnings from the Leadership Track, and
its diverse session offerings, into this final assessment. Synthesize your reflections
and demonstrate your ability to connect the dots and respond to the prompt
adequately (and beyond).

Guiding Opportunities

• Your faculty, Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha, will dedicate the first fifteen minutes of his
session on 05 March 2023 to taking up any clarification doubts on the case study. He
will also hold an extended working session on 12 March 2023 for all groups to come
with their questions on the final assignment. Each group can think of him as an expert
to resolve and clarify any and all questions and observations emerging out of the case
at hand. Please make the best use of these opportunities of interacting with your
faculty to ace your in-class presentations due on 25 March 2023.
• The following mini-courses and Pathways will be unlocked for you on Thriversity to
explore:
• Research Problems and Solutions
• Become a Master Analyst
• Test And Communicate Your Solutions
• Making Decisions

These resources will benefit you in enhancing your grasp on the concepts covered in the session and
taking a step ahead to learn more frameworks and tools to apply on the case study and its prompt.
Grading Rubric

The assignment carries a total of 30 points.

Component Total points Points given by
Conceptual synthesis and comprehension 10 Faculty
Quality of the Deck & Communication 06 Shampa Dhar Kamath
Peer Review 04 Academic Team
Overall Presentation 10 Guest Faculty
Total Points 30 Academic Team
Annexure 1

Group 1: Neha Sarangi, Karan Kavoor, Naman Sharma, Siddhant Jha, Shilpi Singh
Group 2: Maramreddy Alekhya, Rahul Kondapally, Neerja Raheja, Vikas Kumar, Rishit
Yadav
Group 3: Ishna Repswal, Sudhanshu Singh, Alok Dharpure, N N K Sai Kishan, Deepak
Gupta
Group 4: Praful Patil, Mitesh Sharma, Vicky Kapadia, Harendra Joshi, Anupama
Group 5: Anirudh Saraf, Roktim Chakravorty, Sreenidhi R, Rahul Bhandari, Yuvika Rajput
Group 6: Danish Ahemed Qidwai, Ramya TN, Anand Kumar, Shwetha Rao, Samriddhi
Bhutani
Group 7: Adarsh A, Shubhanshi Singh, Aleifiya Bagasrawala, Rajnish Chauhan, Ayush
Arora
Group 8: Kumar Vinit, Rajat Parnami, Ageeru Rahul, Rahul Dixit, Nilanjan Mondal, Tanvi
Butalia
Group 9: Vrinda Aggarwal, Srajesh Gupta, Sushil Kumar, Raj Gandhi, S. Lalith Kishore,
Kamal Kishore
Group 10: Richa Ojha, Shivika Seksaria, Sambasiva Rao, Ankit Srivastava, Hinal Shah,
Pragya Purang