>>MIKE FEERICK: Thank you for the opportunity
and thanks for being invited. I'll try and
speak a little slower so that for those of
you that are listening to be being translated,
you'll be able to understand what I'm saying.
I guess there's a bit of background just for
those of you who're not familiar with Alison.
Alison was formed in 2005/2006, it's a large
free learning platform globally, with about
14 million people using the platform and about
1200 courses, anything from touch typing,
to accounting, to business. We've over 2 million
graduates, so while websites can impress you
saying how many people are signed up, it's
so easy to sign up. Never be impressed by
that number, but when you use real engagement
like 2 million graduates, of course, that's
more important. Just to be clear, our focus
on Alison is workplace learning, so we don't
refer to anything younger. I don't know very
much about it. And I know very little about
the Russian workplace. I won't refer to that
at all. I guess when I was asked about looking
at barriers, I think the first thing that
you need to look to is the fact that if you're
going international at all, platforms are
a very very big part of this. And the whole
idea that we're Russia, and we're large, and
we have 110/120 million people is really irrelevant
if you're going to compete, if you're still
a very small part of the world. What's happening
in education because of the nature of the
business we're in digital, there's tremendous
consolidation of platforms. So whether it's
software telling that you that turned up on
time to school, or whether it's the content
- what you're going to see is almost certainly
is that the whole education space globally
is going to consolidate on to 4 to 5 large
platforms. And if you're a start-up in Russia,
you got to say - can I make it all the way?
And it's a big ask. So you really need to
decide if you're going to be in B2B or you're
going to be in B2C. But the platforms, a lot
of them are B2C. So you really need to ask
yourself that question. So consolidation and
the fact that Russia is actually quite small
on the global scale is important. I think
the single biggest thing I can say to you,
advice for people starting businesses is to
be wary of free. So Alison is entirely free.
We generate revenue through advertising and
through Certification which isn't essential
that you pay for the Certification. But there's
a nice say, it's not necessary to tell you
about Alison. But I want you to think about
the nature of the digital content generally,
and education - anything that's not new, or
anything that's not required, that has speed-related
to it, is the stuff that doesn't change, and
if it's the stuff that doesn't change it's
commoditisable. So all commoditisable digital
content will trend towards zero. So don't
be building business models on creating unique
content out there, because there are too many
players like Alison and others who're fully
intent on driving the costs of education and
every other digital-related service like human
capital management, whether it's psychometric
testing, whether it's recruitment, all of
these services are going towards zero, because
they can, because digital content, you know,
the marginal cost of me sharing a course with
you, or sharing a test with you is zero, and
that's where the market will go. And the other
thing is branding, you know, internationally,
Ireland has, I guess is a very small country,
but it does have a reputation for education.
People expect education to come out of Ireland,
or certainly, that's what I find when I travel
to India and the United States. So you need
to think what's the reputation of Russia if
you're going to actually put your flag up
that you're a Russian platform - it's a very
important thing. And the unusual thing about
education generally is, there's a lot of social
dimensions to education, that's not in other
industries. And investors need to look at
this, as well as the entrepreneurs in the
area is that governments get involved and
try to distort the market because they're
trying to create greater access. Well, that's
difficult for an investor because an investor
normally deals with businesses with little
disruption in the marketplace, the government
doesn't really care what product is bought
or sold - it's good luck to the market. But
education is different. Knowledge is power
and the exciting thing about education - I
guess, the reason why I encourage entrepreneurship
from Russia or anywhere else into it is that
it's a 4 trillion dollar business globally,
it's one of the world's largest businesses.
But if I challenged all of you here to name
who the leader in education is globally, very
few of you will be able to come up with a
name, maybe YouTube and you might be right,
but there's huge fragmentation. Why is there
fragmentation? Largely, because knowledge
traditional has been very political but digital
takes that away. I'll just finish with one
story - we've over 400,000 learners in Nigeria,
and one of the reasons why we're very successful
in Nigeria is, in some countries, and it's
not Nigeria alone, there's a lot of corruption
as to what school you can go to and whatever,
but in the digital domain, we can have a direct
relationship from our headquarters in Galway,
in Ireland, to that student and nobody in
Nigeria is involved, except the person who's
actually studying. So digital gives a tremendous
opportunity to people that are marginalised,
and it's an exciting opportunity in that regard.
I'll finish there but I hope there's some
interest there.
