Alumni plan to quadruple earnings
Valor Econômico
Alumni, a São Paulo chain of English School aimed at the premium public plans to earn four times more until 2015. It is the largest expansion of Alumni in its 50 years of activity. The goal is to increase the current earnings of R$ 30 million (US$ 18.8 million) to R$ 120 million (US$ 75 million) in the next four years. In the same period, the English school intends to achieve 10 thousand new students. They are currently 4 thousand students distributed through four own units.
"To achieve such growth, we will intensify our operation in private colleges as well as in classes inside companies", said Júlio Sampaio, President of Alumni. "We believe it is possible to grow through these formats because it is more convenient for those who work in companies and for school students, which ends up attracting more people. Besides, the cost of the course is lesser because we have no expenditure with the rent and electricity of our facilities, for instance".
Currently, the teachers of Alumni teach classes to 1,250 students of seven São Paulo schools like Rio Branco, Dante Alighieri, Lourenço Castanho, Stockler, among others. Sampaio believes it is possible to teach nearly 8 thousand students of 30 schools. In the corporate universe, one of the strategies of chain of English schools is to work inside the very companies, type of class also known as "in company" class. Today, Alumni has an agreement with 70 companies, whose employees have full or partial discount on the monthly tuition fee of the English courses. "We want to increase our agreements to 150 or 160 companies, motivated mainly by the "in company" classes", explained the President of Alumni, which typically reverts from 12% to 15% of the earnings in the chain of English schools every year.
Alumni is also putting up 'virtual' units in large commercial centers. In the case, the idea is to rent rooms in buildings located at strategic points of the city to teach the classes. In the second half, Alumni should open one of these units in Vila Olímpia, and it intends to have another two of the kind until next year. "Normally, the classes for executives are taught in the periods of the morning, during lunch and in the evening. Therefore, what we need for such public is a well located space, near the offices", said Sampaio.