Case Study – WORLDUCATION

Worlducation is a social startup that manufactures tablet computers for primary school students. They
not only focus on the hardware, but they also have a competitive team creating software, content and
activities to better engage and educate the students.
Worlducation aims to change the way children learn at school by implementing artificial intelligence
technology that can follow up on each child’s progress and adjust to their needs as they learn,
creating the optimal path learning experience.
So far, Worlducation only sells their tablet computers business to business (B2B) as they realised that
their content and hardware proved most effective when a whole classroom was using it, and a teacher
was coordinating the activities. Also, this helped the sales team focus on larger sales, and minimised
the potential number of problems that could arise from individual customers. However, the long-term
plan is to also tackle a business to consumer strategy (B2C).
What makes Worlducation completely different from their competition is that they envision a world in
which every child learns how to read and write – a world without illiteracy. Given this vision, for every
classroom that buys their products, they donate and train a classroom somewhere around the world
that can’t afford the same technology. Furthermore, they connect the two classrooms (those who
bought the products and services and those who received the donation) so that they can grow
together and collaborate throughout their learning cycle.
Worlducation was founded in 2016, and by the end of 2019 they had sold over 35,000 tablets to over
550 schools in 23 countries, generating revenue in hardware sales and software subscriptions.
Worlducation headquarters are in Sydney’s CBD but they have a development team in Bulgaria, a
manufacturing team in Hong Kong, and operation and sales/marketing staff in Colombia, Egypt,
Iceland, Russia and the Philippines.
Its management structure is shown below:
Worlducation’s organisational structure is shown in the figure below.

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Each team (e.g. sales team, finance team, operations team) are required to attend a weekly team
meeting. The executive team (managers, CFO and CEO) also meet weekly.
Additional information specific to the developing the sales team’s personal and professional
work goals:
Worlducation has a complex supply chain that begins when a sale is made usually via a sales
representative or through and online enquiry that is handled by the sales team. Sales are recorded in
an internal Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP System) which notifies the operations team
that an order needs to be delivered. The operations team verify the sales order and authorise the
delivery of a manufacturing request to the factory in Hong Kong. Manufacturing team in Hong Kong
notes the order specifications and delivery details and incorporates this within its production schedule.
The order is manufactured and the operations team arrange freight and shipping directly to the
customer. The sales team contacts the customer to make sure they are satisfied with the delivery and
final product.
Call centre staff receive calls from customers to answer basic questions related to an order status and
to address complaints.
Advertising staff create adverts (for multiple mediums) and manage the social media pages of
Worlducation.
In line with the strategic plan, sales representatives are required to make sales that contribute to the
10% profit p.a. target. They are also required to establish 5 new leads per month and for every 5
leads, make one sale. Call centre staff should resolve 90% of all customer inquiries on the first call
and receive a 95% customer satisfaction rating for the calls they take. Advertising staff should have
no social media posts that require external intervention (e.g. Twitter removing a tweet) and
information in adverts should be 100% accurate.
Worlducation started 2020 with a huge sale to a school in Portugal. Although it was a great start, the
context for the rest of the quarter was highly uncertain due to COVID-19. Surprisingly the pandemic
brought hundreds of new leads and that led to an unprecedented growth that brought alongside
dozens of operation and production problems.
The factory in Hong Kong closed down for 1 month due to government restrictions limiting supply, the
sales team was overwhelmed with sale meetings over ZOOM, the tech-support team had to re-adapt
the software to remote learning for many of the schools, and the founders had to start thinking on how
education was going to change after this worldwide event. Sales representatives felt confused about
how their job roles had evolved and were unsure of what was expected of them.
Many sales representatives felt uneasy about maintaining client relationships and support without
face-to-face in person interaction and client feedback showed a mismatch between their requirements
and those offered by the software adaptations. The advertising staff had incorrectly advertised the
functionality available on the adapted software. Further investigation by the sales manager revealed
that sales representatives needed development in asking the correct questions to fully understand the
quickly evolving needs of individual clients.
Since COVID-19 and the closure of the factory due to government restrictions, of the 2000 tablets due
to be shipped by April, only 500 were completed on schedule. This resulted in numerous customer
complaints. Call centre staff felt ill equipped to handle the number of complaints and deal with
emotional clients.
The CEO has asked the sales manager to manage the personal and performance development of the
sales team to address the new challenges they face. The performance development must address the
gaps in the skills and knowledge of the sales team to achieve 100% customer satisfaction, but not
incur any additional costs. The CEO would review progress in 8 weeks time.
Additional information specific to the assessing the sales team’s personal and professional
work goals:

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After a period of time, all sales team members had submitted their personal and professional
development plans (as per policy and procedure requirements).
Three of the plans are shown below:

Role description Role: Sales representative

Key competencies:
Able to maintain positive customer relationships
Able to use ERP system
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
Organisational skills to fulfill duties (e.g. team meeting).

Development Personal: Organisational skills to manage multiple zoom calls

requirements
Professional: Maintain positive online customer relationships

Goals Performance Time Priority Incentives/rewards

development frame
opportunities

Successfully Coaching 8 weeks. 1 Day off work

schedule and attend
all Sales meetings
on zoom

No customer Role-playing difficult 8 weeks. 2 Cash bonus

complaints conversations

Role description Role: Call centre staff

Key competencies:

Use technology to solve customer queries

Communication skills to manage emotional customers
Organisational skills to manage workload.

Development Personal: Manage anxiety due to increased workload.

requirements
Professional: Deal with emotional clients.

Goals Performance Time Priority Incentives/rewards

development frame
opportunities

Successfully diffuse Watch and learn from 8 weeks 2 Cash reward

98% of emotional simulated role-play
situations on a call. interactions

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 No sick days due to Mentoring sessions. 8 weeks 1 Work pays for yoga
anxiety. sessions.

Role description Role: Advertising staff

Key competencies:
Design and develop adverts for multiple mediums.
Attention to detail.
Organisational skills to manage work load.

Development Personal: Improved attention to detail.

requirements
Professional: Improve digital advertising skills.

Goals Performance Time Priority Incentives/rewards

development frame
opportunities

No errors on adverts Checklist. 8 weeks 1 Salary increase.

submitted for
approval.

Reduce time to Attend training course. 8 weeks 2 Better time

create digital adverts management (intrinsic
by 20%. reward)

Additional information specific to your own role and responsibilities:

All managers should be competent in planning and organising, have good inter-personal skills, are
able to coach and train and guide staff member to achieve personal and organisational goals.
Performance is measured by:

 the peer reviews rating received from team members

 CEO’s review of your work.

 contribution to organisational profit

 staff retention.
After a period of time, the sales team was given the opportunity to provide feedback on the sale’s
manager’s performance. Many team members mentioned the manager’s abrupt manner which left
them unsure of their standing with him. The CEO was delighted that most activities scheduled by the
sales manager were completed within budget and on time. No additional costs were incurred in the
personal and professional development of staff. However, there were still too many customer
complaints and the CEO was concerned that the sales manager’s organisational skills needed
improvement to successfully prioritise tasks and decrease customer complaints by another 20%. The
CEO requested that the sales manager address his own personal and professional development and
then follow up in 4 weeks to discuss progress.
When prioritising work, the customer is always put first.

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Additional information specific to health and wellbeing of the sales team:
In addition to improving their own persona performance, the CEO has mentioned the following
complaints from HR from sales team members:

 The sales representative has complained about headaches and stiff shoulders from increased
computer work.

 The call centre rep has taken an unusually high number of sick days due to anxiety.

 The advertising staff is struggling to manage home and work commitments.

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 Strategic Plan 2020 – 2022

Welcome
Welcome to the Strategic Plan for Worlducation.
This document sets out our vision for the next two years and how we hope to achieve it.
We hope you enjoy reading this document.

Lucas Lopez
CEO
Worlducation

Executive Summary
Founded in 2016, Worlducation is a social startup that manufactures tablet computers for primary
school students. Our focus is not only on the hardware, but also creating software, content and
activities to better engage and educate primary school students.
Worlducation aims to change the way children learn at school by implementing artificial intelligence
technology that can follow up on each child’s progress and adjust to their needs as they learn,
creating the optimal path learning experience. Worlducation envisions a world in which every child
learns how to read and write – a world without illiteracy. This is why, for each classroom that buys our
product, we donate and train a classroom somewhere around the world that can’t afford the same
technology. We then connect the classrooms together so that they can grow and collaborate
throughout their learning cycle.

Vision Statement
To see a world without illiteracy.

Mission Statement
To be the change and facilitate a world without illiteracy by changing the way children learn at school
and the number of schools that have access to technology.

Our values are:

Core values underpinning our activities are:

 Ethical principles

 Innovation

 Collaboration.

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Strategic Priorities
To be well led, high performing, profitable and accountable.

 Ensure that all financial operations, performance indicators and results support the strategic
policies

 Identify new and expand existing sources of revenue and ways to help more classrooms in need.

 Achieve profits of at least 10% per annum.

Increase our reach

 Increase range of products and services offered to reach a larger target market

 Increase sales to increase donations to needy classrooms.

Continue building deeper customer relationships

 Customer-centred practice, with a focus on meeting their total needs for high-quality technology

 Strengthen the skills of our people, to better support customers

 Drive innovation to better meet customer demands

Attract, engage and develop the best staff

 Continuing the drive to a customer centred, high performance workforce and culture

 Strengthening the skills of our people, to better support customer needs

 Empowering innovation and responsiveness to change

 Continuing to enhance the diversity of our workforce

 Exploring the use of technology in human resources.

The Market
The technology market is a growing and ever-changing industry due to the rapid rate that technology
is being updated. Emerging technologies include artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IOT).
There is an increasing focus on cyber security.
Due to the global pandemic, the issues with the manufacturing industry have impacted on the supply
of hardware components.
The trend for consumer spending during the pandemic has taken a downturn but this has not affected
the ICT industry as due to more people working form home, consumer appetite for tablets has
increased.

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Situation Analysis

Strengths Weaknesses

 Value and quality  Brand name not developed as well it could

be
 Strong management
 Growing organisation
 Customer loyalty

 Friendly organisational culture

 Level of available finance for investment

Opportunities Threats

 Schools needing to upgrade technology  High level of competition

 Opportunities to offer a range of services  Economic downturn meaning less spent

generally
 Opportunities for synergies across all
services and products  Failing to satisfy clients demands

Marketing Strategies
Our marketing strategies aim to:

 Build our brand

 Generate leads now

 Convert those leads quickly

 Have every part of the business supporting each other

We plan to develop our market share by:

 Improving our marketing and advertising

 Continually improving the quality of service given to clients

 Maintaining effective communication channels with all stakeholders to ascertain industry

requirements and then develop products and manage services accordingly

 Continually improving communication channels with all our stakeholders, ensuring a flow of
timely and accurate information to facilitate effective planning and decision making

 Targeting identified growth markets with planned, market appropriate campaigns employing a
variety of promotional strategies and advertising mediums

 Offering attractive fee structures to our clients

 Continually improving the skills, knowledge and effectiveness of our team through our
commitment to training and development

 Regularly reviewing the effectiveness of all our operations and making improvements when and
where necessary

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 Employee Training and Development Policy and
Procedures

Policy brief & purpose

This policy refers to Worlducation’s learning and development programs and activities for all staff
members. Worlducation aims to help employees extend their knowledge and acquire new skills to do
their jobs better. We want our employees to feel confident to find new ways towards personal
development and success.

Scope
This policy applies to all permanent, full-time or part-time, employees of the company. Employees
with temporary/short-term contracts might attend trainings at their manager’s discretion.
Employees, managers and executives should collaborate to build a continuous professional
development (CPD) culture:

 The employee is responsible to seek new learning opportunities

 The manager is responsible to coach their teams and identify employee development needs
Training and development includes:

 Formal training sessions (individual or corporate)

 Employee Coaching and Mentoring

 Participating in conferences

 On-the-job training (e.g. simulations)

 Employee discussion forums

 Job shadowing

 Job rotation

 Subscriptions or educational material

Individual training programs

All employees that have worked for the company more than four months are eligible to participate in
external training programs individually or in teams.
Employees can choose to attend as many training programs as they want, provided they don’t exceed
the budget and day limit.
All trainings should consider what employees need and how they can learn best. This is why, we
encourage employees and managers to consider multiple training methods like workshops, e-
learning, lectures and more.
Individuals are to complete individual personal and professional development plans using the
Worlducation Development Plan template.

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Expert training
Experts (internal or external) may be required at certain times, for example:

 Equal employment opportunity training

 Diversity training

 Leadership training for managers

 Conflict resolution training for employees

 Training new employees

 Training teams in company-related issues (e.g. new systems or policy changes)

 Training employees to prepare them for promotions, transfers or new responsibilities

Other types of training

Both employees and their managers are responsible for continuous learning. Employees should show
willingness to improve by asking their managers for direction and advice. Managers should do the
same with their own superiors, while encouraging and mentoring their subordinates.
Employees and managers are responsible for finding the best ways to approach learning. They can
experiment with job rotation, job shadowing and other types of on-the-job training (without disrupting
daily operations). We also encourage employees to use their rights for self-paced learning by asking
for educational material and access to other resources within allocated budget.

General guidelines:
Managers should evaluate the success of training efforts. They should keep records for reference and
better improvement opportunities.
All employee development efforts should respect cost and time limitations, as well as individual and
business needs.
Employees should try to make the most out of their trainings by studying and finding ways to apply
knowledge to their work.

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 Development plan template

Role description Role:

Key competencies:

Development Personal:
requirements
Professional:

Goals Performance Time Priority Incentives/rewards

development frame
opportunities

1.

2.

3.

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 Internal Communication Policy and Procedures

Worlducation aims to enhance and streamline communications (internal and external) to reinforce the
vision and strategic priorities. As such, we will continue to develop and trial new communication
platforms, channels, and tools to improve information sharing and collaboration between all staff
members.
This policy is to be implemented in a way that ensures compliance with relevant legislative
requirements and standards of best practice.
Worlducation expects that staff will use the channels and for business purposes only and comply with
all relevant policies and procedures, the Code of Conduct.

Communication channels
Worlducation has a number of internal communication channels available, including:

Channel Purpose

Project or action All plans should be updated to show completion of each action/process or
plans task.

Feedback Regular informal feedback should be given either via a conversation (in
person or telephone) or via through review-comments on documents.

Staff bulletin This contains Information from the executive to staff which is important and
relevant to their interests, including training, employment vacancies and
important announcements.
Contributions for the Staff Bulletin must be approved in advance by the
contributor’s relevant manager before being sent to the communications
officer for review and inclusion.

Staff surveys These are used to gather information and feedback from all staff members.
Surveys should be sent to staff via email link.

Worlducation intranet The intranet provides important information for staff in an easily accessible
location.
The intranet is to be used for conveying information which is important and
relevant from the executive team to staff. It is the responsibility of the
person contributing the content to ensure the content is factually correct. All
contributions must be approved in advance by the contributor’s relevant
manager.

Enterprise social These may be used by groups of staff to collaborate and communicate on
networks (e.g. projects online (e.g. to share and comment on work-related ideas, news
Yammer, Facebook) and activities). Personal use of these platforms may not be used during
work hours. Use of these networks must comply with the Social Media
Policy.

Meetings and The first option should always be a conversation (face-to-ace, telephone
conversations etc.). If the conversation includes importance, consequences, deadlines,

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Channel Purpose

negotiation, outcomes etc, they must be followed by a summary email or

document.

All Staff emails Emails are used for messages to and between staff. Staff are required to
read all their work-related emails.

Email distribution Email distribution lists may only be used by the executive team and should
lists adhere to the Privacy policy.

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