Intro

Problem

PROBLEM: In South Africa, most of the high paying jobs are in the major cities and require knowledge of

the English language, however education rates are low in the country. Johannesburg has a major

financial district, but South Africans who don’t speak English won’t have the qualifications to work in this

industry.

Mission statement

“To connect passionate English-speaking individuals to those who have the desire to learn the language

to expand their career opportunities”

Analysis of Country’s Environment and Industry

- Employers pay English speakers the highest salaries

- Lots of warehouse jobs

Overall, South Africa remains the largest and most sophisticated warehousing and
logistics market across the continent, recording over 450 000 square metres of sales
transactions in 2020

Sadly, we cannot say the same about South Africa. My interactions with most fellow young
teachers reveal that they chose teaching out of desperation rather than passion. Failing to meet
minimum entry requirements of their preferred disciplines, they chose teaching. Disappointingly,
many faculties of education in South Africa fuel this practice with their relatively weaker
selection criteria, making it easy for academically weaker candidates to get in. When we
succeed in attracting the best young teachers, we fail to keep them long enough.

Most developed financial industry in all of Africa. English is spoken heavily in Johannesburg which is
where most finance jobs are. A lot of the highest paying jobs are in the city.

Production/Operations Plan

The service would operate through the website.

The Goal

SDG 4 aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote
lifelong learning opportunities for all.
IENV description
Our international entrepreneurship venture is a not-for-profit online teaching service
that would be provided by volunteer Canadian university students. The mission statement of
our company is: To connect individuals who are passionate about education to those who have
the desire to learn and expand their career horizons. The students would teach a variety of
different subjects to South African people of all ages, and experience level. The South Africans
would take entry proficiency tests for each subject they enroll in to see what level they would
start at. From there, they would learn through pre-recorded modules, live help, and homework
assignments. The students would be able to learn at their own pace and re-take as many classes
and assignments as they need to feel comfortable with the content. There is no definitive
timeline so every student can work at their own pace. We believe that this is important because
many of the people taking these courses also must work full time jobs. As mentioned earlier,
the company would operate as a non-for profit, and would rely heavily on government grants,
philanthropic support, and advertising revenue from ad spots on the website. As the web traffic
increases to the website, we would consider selling merchandise like to increase revenue. All
profits from the merchandise would be re-invested in to improving our services.

To make the volunteer experience more enticing for the Canadian university students
they would receive a government grant that would go towards paying their tuition. As of 2020,
Canadian students are eligible to receive up to $5000 in grants for their volunteer hours.
(Leggett, 2020) This funding is part of a Canadian program for student debt relief. Working as a
volunteer teacher would also look very good on the Canadian’s resume. Employers would see
that the university students are caring, and possess skills that are needed for teaching, like
patience and creativity. This would be a benefit to all university students but would be even
more beneficial to students who are looking to enter a teaching profession. Our company
would attempt to build a relationship with Canadian universities, starting in Ontario. Since
every member of our team is a Goodman School of Business student, we have access to many
resources that Brock University offers. Many of the business professors have international
business experience so we would be able to ask their opinions before we make any major
decisions. Much like the experiential learning assignments we have been a part of in our other
classes, we hope to establish a student and client relationship. Brock University would be the
perfect place to establish a student teacher base, and over time we could expand to other
universities.

Analysis of Country’s Environment and Industry

“Analysis assists organizations in defining factors that can influence their business
operations. By weighing these elements, they can foresee the trajectory of their business given
the circumstances.” (Estrellas, 2022) To best understand the environment and industry of South
Africa, our company has conducted a PESTEL analysis. This analysis considers many of the key
elements when attempting to conduct business in another country.

Political

South Africa is currently dealing with political uncertainty. Corruption had been a
serious issue for the previous president Jacob Zuma “who was forced out by a series of
scandals” (Burke, 2022) The current president of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa was elected in
2018. As part of his campaign, he promised that he would fight corruption in South Africa. In
2020 up to 5 million dollars was stolen from Ramaphosa’s ranch. The issues with this, is that the
money had not been declared for tax regulations, and the money was being used for money
laundering. Although there has not been any official ruling yet, Ramaphosa may be impeached.
This has led to the distrust of government among South African’s. The news of the president’s
potential impeachment caused the South African Dollar (Rand) to drop dramatically in value.
“Fears for the country’s political stability and the future of a leader seen as business friendly.”
(Burke, 2022) Overall, the political environment of South Africa is in turmoil.

Economic
 Since the Covid-19 pandemic and news of president Ramaphosa’s potential
impeachment, the South African economy has faired poorly. According to the South African
country risk report the Rand “to depreciate by 8.8% to an average of ZAR18.00/USD” (London,
2022). As the value of the Rand decreases, many South Africans will feel the need to make
more money to cover their costs of living. South Africa is also heavily tied into the global market
which means it is at risk to external factors. The war between the Ukraine and Russia has
negatively impacted the demand for goods produced in South Africa. Inflation, and less
available jobs could lead to a recession in. To maintain their current standard of living, the
working class will have the option of either working longer hours or finding a higher paying job.
Typically, the better paying jobs will require a higher level of education. Because of this, our
company believes that we may be entering the country at the perfect time. South African’s will
be actively looking to better qualify themselves for jobs, and we can offer them that for free.

Social

A common trend among South African’s is demanding more from the government.
There is unrest among the citizens of South Africa as they grow tired from the continued
corruption in the government. “As economic growth remains anaemic, social unrest will remain
an issue. We give South Africa a low score of 30.0 out of 100 (higher score implies lower risk) in
the ‘social stability’” (London,2022) The government has very little support from the people,
and the worsening economic state will further discourage the citizens of South Africa.

Poverty is all too common in South Africa. Unemployment is a major issue that the
country faces. In the second quarter of 2022, unemployment was “around 33.9% of the labour
force” (London, 2022). “Which will remain disproportionately concentrated among the black
population owing to the legacy of apartheid” (London, 2022). Even among the working class
there is a massive unequal distribution of income. A large majority of the high paying jobs are in
major cities like Johannesburg. In South Africa, there are 11 official languages. The density of
how many people speak these languages is different in every region. The only consistency is
that the only region where English is the primary language is in the major cities. Johannesburg
has a major financial district that continues to grow. To be eligible for the jobs, speaking English
is a necessity. South Africans who do no speak English will be at a severe disadvantage to
secure the premier jobs. With our services we believe that we can offer South Africans at or
below the poverty line a high-quality education to improve their future.

Technological

South Africa is the most technologically advanced country in all of Africa. It is one of
South Africa’s most important industries and contributes heavily to the countries GDP. Since
our company plans to operate completely online, internet access is essential for students who
want to access our lessons. Although the quality of South Africa’s internet is not outstanding
“South Africa ranks 66th out of 117 countries” (Hussain, 2022), nearly all the country has access
to the internet, with some carriers like MTN claiming up to 90% coverage of the country (MTN,
2022). To stream video, the end user only needs access to speeds of 1Mbps. “South Africa, the
continent’s internet speed leader—with an average mobile internet download speed of 68.9
megabits per second (Mbps)” (Ngila, 2022) This shows that accessing our services will not be an
issue for most people who are interested in them. Individuals who do not have internet access
at home will be able to access it from community centers like libraries. All these rates will climb
quickly over the upcoming years. Video streaming and access to the internet has become a very
basic technology, and soon everyone who wants it will have access to it.

Environmental

In Canada while conducting business we take for granted our infrastructure for power
and how quickly it can be fixed. South Africa on the other hand, is not nearly as developed in
terms of critical infrastructure, or time to repair failures.

South Africa is at risk to a wide array of natural disasters including floods, wildfires,
windstorms, and tornadoes. For a country with a less developed infrastructure system, this can
lead to operation outages or complete destruction. The country still relies on old coal
powerplants that breakdown frequently causing outages. “Several studies have also revealed
the susceptibility of distribution and transmission power lines to extreme weather. South
African transmission lines have been shown to be vulnerable to high winds, floods, and
lightning” (Majodina, 2018) This will be a important risk factor for our operations in South
Africa. Although we do not have a physical location, we heavily rely on South Africans having
access to power and internet. Outages may take many hours, if not days to be restored in more
rural areas. Coincidentally, the poorest communities are the rural ones, which we hope to
target.

Legal

There will be legal steps that our company must take to conduct business in South
Africa. Primarily, our company must apply for Non-Profit-Organization (NPO) status in South
Africa. We must complete a model constitution form and a Trust deed form. From there, we
will have to register online with the South African government and await approval. There are
some benefits of having NPO status in South Africa. It will greatly improve the chances of our
company receiving funding from the South African government and will help with the
company’s image in South Africa greatly. NPOs will be much more by South African
communities, as they will believe them to be legitimate. Although we are looking primarily for
Canadian government support at the start, having the approval of the South African
government will be a great advantage.
Production/Operations Plan (Cameron)

Englishtics’ production and operations will run entirely through the company’s website
after it is developed. It will host all our structured curriculum and would be our only direct
source of revenue, through advertisements.

When applying to volunteer for our teaching service, the students will outline which
subjects they feel most comfortable with teaching. The first step in establishing our operation is
to allow the Canadian university students to become familiar with the curriculum that they will
be assigned to teach. They will review the curriculum created by the curriculum coordinators
and translators. They will also be required to go over homework assignments and create
custom solutions for the students to review. The volunteer teachers will pre-record modules
that can be streamed on the website at anytime, and they will also be assigned live-help hours.
These hours will be scheduled like a shift at any other regular job. They will be required to sign
in an be available to give live lessons, or answers questions in a live chatroom for a few hours a
week. Ideally, as the popularity of the site grows, the volunteers will be able to work less live
hours because of the number of teachers available. They would still be needed for private
lessons or assignment grading.

The first step for the South African students would be to create a profile on our website.
All their assignments, progress, and grade history would be stored online. After registering for
the website, they would be required to complete a proficiency test for each subject they are
interested in registering for. Depending on how they score on this test, we will be able to
decide what is the best starting level for them. Our leveling system will be like a traditional
grading scale, but not quite the same. Instead of grades one to twelve, we would have level on
to ten. Level one would be the most basic concepts. For example, for someone learning English,
they would be learning how to say hello, and learning how to count. Completing level ten would
be like completing a grade twelve level course. They would be required to show reading
comprehension and produce effective and efficient responses to show their comprehension.
We believe that testing the student’s proficiency from the very start is going to be the most
effective use of our student’s time. Students who already have a basic to intermediate
understanding of the subjects will no feel as if they are wasting time by working on problems
that they find too basic. The same can be said for students that how feel overwhelmed by the
content. We will provide education from the very basics to that the student feels like they are
constantly progressing and not left behind.

Once a student has been assigned their starting level, they will be assigned to a pool of
instructors. There will be multiple teachers available for every level to make sure that students
are always able to receive help when they need it. The student will be able to learn from the
pre-recorded modules assigned to their proficiency level. After completing the modules, they
will be assigned homework problems that they are able to complete at their leisure. Not only
will they have as much time as they need to complete the assignment, but they will also be able
to retake assignments as many times as they need. Shortly after they submit an assignment,
volunteer teachers will grade it, and return them feedback so they understand what they did
wrong, and what they did right. As a company we understand that many of our students may
be working full time jobs, so we want to be a respectful of there time as possible. Therefore,
there are no assignment time limits or due dates.

To advance to the next level of difficulty. Students will be required to score 80% or
better on a final exam. These exams will scale with difficulty and cover more complex topics as
they progress. To pass the higher-level exams, they will need to use what they have learned in
previous levels. Our company is hopeful that after the completion of a level ten course, are
certificate will hold a similar value to that of a General Education Development (GED).

Advertisting

With Englishtics we plan to make all our revenue from advertisements posted on our
website. This means that the higher volume of people we have accessing our site will increase
the amount of revenue we can make and the amount we can charge for ad spots. We would
start with running advertisements through google AdSense. AdSense is a reliable and consistent
way to generate money with a website. In the best cases, you can make up to $15 dollars per
click with AdSense. We would be able to generate revenue through AdSense as soon as our
website launches. We believe that in the future it will be possible to partner with larger brands
and charge a lot more for sponsored posts and advertisements. This is another common
method for websites and social media sites to make money. The partnering company will pay
you to run the same advertisement for an agreed upon length of time. For example, Tide
laundry detergent will pay use $40,000 to reserve an ad spot on the front page for a month.
Contracts, and partnerships like these will help our company grow in the long and short term.

Volunteers

As a company we will track all the hours volunteered by students through our website.
This will work in a similar way to how a punch clock would work for a job with a physical
location. When the volunteer starts to work, they will sign in and their status would be set to
“online”. The time they spend signed in, answering questions would all count towards
volunteer hours. The volunteers would be able to track on the website how many hours they
are being given credit for, for their own records. When the students apply for government
grants, we would send them an official transcript of their hours worked. We are also willing to
send these transcripts for students who would like to use us as a reference when applying to
schools or jobs.
References