University College Bachelor Thesis

Lillebælt
Submission date: 13/06/2019
VPBIE18EI1

Online Courses
MORTEN BANG INVEST APS

Number of keystrokes: 100 000

Author:
Supervisor: Henrik Steen Krogh
Anna-Maria Ilieva Levenova
Table of Contents

Introduction............................................................................................................................................1
Problem Statement..............................................................................................................................1
Delimitations...........................................................................................................................................1
Methodology...........................................................................................................................................1
Analysis....................................................................................................................................................1
Discussion/ Reflection.........................................................................................................................1
Conclusion...............................................................................................................................................1
Bibliography............................................................................................................................................1
Appendices..............................................................................................................................................1
Executive Summary

Introduction
Morten Bang Invest ApS is a company operating within the Real Estate sector. It was
established on 4th of April 2011, 3 days after Morten Bang, the owner of the company, has
bought his first apartment and currently, the company owns 36 apartments in the city of
Odense.
The primary activity of Morten Bang Invest ApS is buying, selling and renting out properties,
but focusing mostly on renting out. This is also the main revenue stream of the company.
(reference).
Apart from that Morten Bang Invest ApS is offering services as form of secondary activity.
These services are distributing lectures and workshops to other businesses and private
customers as well as offering mentoring programs in regards with Real Estate and Stock
investing. These services are based on Morten Bang’s expertise and experience as an
investor and a teacher.
However, this part of the business does not generate as much revenue compared to the
primary activity of the company. Therefore the intention of the company’s owner is to
further develop this side of the business into the educational sector and reach more
customers.
Thus during her internship the author of this paper had the task to innovate this side of the
business in order to ensure growth. After several meetings with the owners of the company,
it was decided that the best way to do so might be via creating online educational courses.
These courses are expected to reach a bigger, more international segment and take the role
of passive income.
Therefore, this paper will look into how can this project be turned into a profitable side of
the business. Moreover, it will describe the process of creating such online courses and
provide critical reflection.

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Problem Statement
The global online educational market is growing with every year and is expected to surpass
$271 billion by 2022. The e-learning is able to reach more potential customers, thus making
the education easily accessible. It provides students with the chance to study subjects of
their choice at low cost. Furthermore it gives them flexibility, making it easier to balance
their responsibilities.

Governments and educational institutions around the globe are working towards the
common goal of educating the society, which contributes to the e-learning market growth.
The European Union, for example, has established different programs for creating qualified
workforce in order to ensure economic growth, more job opportunities, encourage
entrepreneurship and reach fairer living standards.

With the growth of the Internet, more and more private companies and individuals are
offering online courses which led to the creation of some online educational platforms such
as Udemy, Patreon, Teachable, Skillshare and many others.

Since 2015, Morten Bang Invest Aps has been offering lectures and workshops with the
purpose of educating. However at this point of time, these services does not bring a stable
revenue stream for the company. Thus, it was decided that creating online courses might
set the company on the so desired path for growth.

Therefore this paper, aims to answer the question:

How can the company turn the idea of creating online education courses into sustainable
business?

Delimitations

Source criticism

Methodology
This paper is based on a post positivist point of view, being more specific - on an
interpretive basis. Explained in other words, this means that while writing the assignment,
the author have been affected by her background, current emotions and factors such as

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cognitive, physiological and cultural. Therefore it should be taken into account that paper
has been highly influenced by these factors.

The innovation approached used is based on the Evolutionary innovation. As it was already
the company is offering services in the education sector such as the lectures, workshop and
the mentoring program. However, creating online courses is a new service for the company
and it brings different value for both the business and the customers.

When it comes to the date collected, mostly desk research was used. This includes articles,
books and documents. However, the paper also revolves around an interview with the
owner of the company and a survey made among its customers.

Theories and models

PESTEL analysis

Before taking any steps toward the creation of online courses, a PESTEL analysis was
created so in order to study the environment and establish whether this idea has potential
or not.

Project plan

The project plan was used in order to create a clear overview of what steps need to be
taken in order to create the already mentioned online educational courses.

Waterfall methodology

The waterfall methodology was used to describe each of these steps of the creation of such
courses. The steps are stated in Figure 1. of the project plan.

Risk analysis

The Risk Analysis is an idivisible part of any project as it paints a picture of all the risks that
may badly affect the project. It is used to examine potential threats and in that way
awareness is raised. Therefore, an action can be taken against these risks that could be
foreseen in advance. The author presented several issues that can occur and possible
solutions to them using Project controlling tools.

Competitor analysis

Competitor analysis was created in order to provide information about the other parties that
are offering similar courses and to find a way to differentiate from them.

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After Action Report

During her internship, the author of this paper was working on the creation of the online
courses and using the After Action Report was used in order to document the activities done
in regards with this project and reflect upon what could have been done in a different way in
order to optimize the work process.

Analysis
Before the start of the author’s internship, it was discussed what the owner of Morten Bang
Invest wants for the future development of the company. His passion for investing and real
estate led to the creation of the company’s secondary activity. Since 2015, Morten Bang has
been lecturing and creating workshops, where he educates the participants about investing.
In 2018 he had 47 lectures and in 2019 – a bit over 30.

However, as mentioned before, this part of the business does not generate the wanted
revenue, thus the owner wants to make it more sustainable. He would like to reach more
diverse and big market via the internet.

The initial idea was to create an educational institution that will provide online bachelor and
master degrees. Morten Bang believes that the educational system in Denmark is one of the
best and gives a lot of value to the students as it brings together the theory and practice.
His expectations are to reach the African and South Asian market via e-learning and thus
provide them with high quality education and flexibility.

In fact the African and Asian e-learning markets are growing with fast pace. The e-learning
sector in Africa has doubled in size between 2011 and 2016 and is expected to grow even
further, reaching USD 1.5 billion by 2023.

The situation in Asia is even better. This is the second largest market with revenue from e-
learning products USD 12.1 billion in 2018. Seven out of the top 10 countries with highest
growing rates in the world are in Asia.

One of the reasons for this drastic growth is the limited capacity of the universities in these
two continents.

For example Kevin Andrews, vice chancellor of the pan-African UNICAF University, stated in
a recent interview with Times Higher Education that “Africa would need to build 10
universities a week, [with] each [one enrolling] 10,000 students every week for the next 12
years” in order to keep up with demand.

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Besides the effort of the governments for providing equal chance for education to the
society, less than 10% of the Sub-Saharan African youth are actually enrolled in post-
secondary education.

The demand for education is expected to drastically increase in the next few decades due to
the boom in the population of SSA and South Asia. For example Nigeria’s population will
double to about 400 million by 2050, turning the West African country into the third largest
nation on earth. India on the other hand, within the next seven years might surpass China
as the largest nation on earth - to about 1.5 billion people by 2030.

In the long term, these demographic trends could be beneficial. Economists often consider
the youth bulging as a positive phenomenon - young labor force and opportunities for
development. However, the countries in SSA and South Asia are struggling to do provide
quality education, enough university placement and job opportunities. As a result the youth
unemployment rate in SSA stands at 14.2%, while Nepali youth deem prospects for
employment rate less than 28% of the country’s labor force. In India, hundreds of
thousands of labor migrants leave the country each year.
However due to the limited financial resources, the governments cannot provide the so
needed education to the population. One way to solve this is through Privatization. Private
sector enrollments in Africa have grown twice as fast compared to the public enrollments
between 2008 and 2013 and it is expected that by 2021 one in four African students will be
studying in private educational institutions.

Private schools tend to be more responsive to the industries’ needs and are able act to fast
when it comes to change. As African academics Wondwosen Tamrat and Damtew Teferra
have stated:

“… Private universities infuse competitiveness due to their dynamic and entrepreneurial

features …”

While Privatization has made the education easily accessible, it also has some bad side
effects - the quality of the education deteriorated. It led to a mushrooming low-quality for-
profit institutions and unlicensed providers that deliver substandard education and award
credentials of little value. Therefore quality audits and school closures are becoming
increasingly common in both of the continents. One recent example is Zimbabwe, where the
government shutdown 280 private colleges in 2017. In the same year, the Association of
African Universities (AAU) came up to an agreement with the upcoming online education
provider ELearnAfrica. The deal is expected to expand the online course offerings of AAU’s

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380 member universities by 1,000 MOOCs, making new educational opportunities available
for an additional 10 million African students.

These findings show the enormous potential

Discussion/ Reflection

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendices