Everonn Education in brick & mortar foray

Technology-based education content provider Everonn Education has forayed into the brick and mortar management education business. It has set up a management institute in Chennai via a partnership model.

“We have the expertise, content and technology-based delivery platforms. So we thought of the brick & mortar approach. Here we will have partners who will own the infrastructure and assets while we will provide content and management for the institutes,” P Kishore, MD, Everonn Education Ltd, said.

The company is known for its virtual technology enabled learning solutions (ViTELS) or commonly termed virtual classrooms.
Sources said seven such institutes will come up at Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar and Pune.
Everonn plans to hire 1000 people in FY11 to meet its business expansion plans.

The firm has earmarked a capex of Rs 200 crore that will be invested in acquiring smarter content delivery mechanisms, niche content like those for chartered accountancy, medical entrance, engineering entrance, besides hiring management and faculty for the newly launched management institutes, Kishore said.

The company already provides education content to 7 medical colleges, 500 engineering colleges, 500 arts and science colleges and 200 B-schools in the country. 

Everonn operates 1,017 schools and 1,567 colleges in the country where it provides ViTELS. Its revenues for the year ended March 31, 2010, stood at Rs 294 crore against Rs 145 crore in the fiscal 2009, up 103%. Profit rose 106% to Rs 46 crore.

The firm sees continuing global uncertainty as favorable for its business. “Education benefits during recession. This has been demonstrated in the US during the downturn where colleges and management institutes ran full capacity. Though India has not seen much of an impact due to the recession, we see demand for skill acquisition programmes,” said Kishore.