Teaching English to MNC Workforces: GlobalEnglish CEO Deepak Desai (Part 3)

SM: In the past 20 years English has evolved significantly as a language.

DD: Exactly, and it has evolved in its own manner. There is an academy in France that decides what constitutes a French word. There is no academy that decides what an ‘English’ word is. It is very much an open source language. We focus on large, multinational corporations. These corporations have due to globalization and technology. The free movement of labor and capital has made corporations evolve.

When corporations used to go abroad, their first step was to establish a marketing office. The second stage was what we called “mini-me’s”. IBM US was the first company, so IBM France, IBM Japan, etc, were just mini-me’s of IBM US. They are completely integrated but self-contained. The third stage was a completely globally integrated enterprise. It does not matter where you are, where customers are, where suppliers are, or where workers are. Companies are organizing themselves along product lines across the world. After 1995, you had email, VoIP, conference calls and technology which enabled global communication. That led to a pain point with the need for a common language.

SM: Of the 2 billion people who are learning English at any given time, what percentage of that is in your target audience of global corporations?

DD: That number is much smaller. There are about 5 to 10 million. That is our target. I have been with the company for seven years. My education, experience, Internet background, and the global aspect of my career makes this the right place for me to be. The key is focus and execution. You can have the greatest opportunity in the world, but if you don’t focus you won’t get anywhere.

SM: You can’t spray and pray, you have to focus. I am very glad to hear you have a corporate market focus because there is somebody who is willing and able to pay. What region did you start getting initial traction with?

DD: We have a very interesting sales model. We are trying to create a global model where none existed before. When I was with TimeWarner, I was a regional executive sitting in Hong Kong. If I wanted to improve the skills of my people, I went to a local vendor. There was no global solution.

At GlobalEnglish we decided to sell globally. We started out with some U.S., German and Japanese companies. We refined it over time. We really focused on offering a globally scalable solution for corporations. IBM is one of our large customers. IBM has users in 59 countries with GlobalEnglish. Our solution is strategic for them. Classrooms do not offer solutions for what they are facing. They are looking for a scalable, standard, measurable solution that can touch thousands of employees worldwide. From a positioning point of view, we have decided that we want to play were we can win. We have created a global solution whereas many of our competitors try to sell locally.

SM: When you deal with an international corporation what is the sales cycle?

DD: The challenge is often like the one we faced with HP who we signed six years ago. We went to them and they told us that everyone in their company already spoke English. That is not true. People sitting in the United States do not feel the pain, because the pain is local. Because of that we often start the sales cycle locally in a non-U.S. site. The objective is to grow it from that site to a global one, which is difficult.

SM: How long is the cycle to move from a local pilot to a global deal?

DD: It can take a couple of years, but once you are established you then have a repeatable business.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Teaching English to MNC Workforces: GlobalEnglish CEO Deepak Desai
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