iNurture Education Solutions – India’s Transformational Edtech Brand

Category Selected: EdTech/ Higher Education

Led by Ashwin Ajila a Transformational Leader, iNurture is truly transforming higher education through innovative models and great leadership values

Ashwin Ajila, iNurture Education Solutions – India’s Transformational Leaders 2019

iNurture powers new-age undergraduate and postgraduate programs of premium Indian and global universities through its unique University-Industry Partnership (UIP) model.

iNurture Education Solutions was established in the year 2009. Operating through a unique collaborative University-Industry Partnership (UIP) model, ensuring qualifying degrees along with cutting edge knowledge and skills. With our presence in around 40 campuses in India, growth of iNurture is predicated on a combination of several critical factors – including its scientifically designed, industry-aligned curriculum and technology-enabled pedagogical design. Our team of distinguished academicians and industry stalwarts is committed to the creation of world class institutions and promote highest standards of meritocracy in teaching, research and professional excellence. iNurture team works judiciously to design curriculum as per accreditation standards in India, USA and Europe. Programmes offered by iNurture in the field of Information technology such as Information Security, Data Science, Mobile Application, in Animation and Digital film making, Finance and Business Analytics, in Management such as Digital Marketing and International Business are in high demand. iNurture is evolving as a preferred Knowledge Partner with distinguished global institutes to offer highly acclaimed programmes in India and across other emerging markets.

Brand Vision: Build a robust ecosystem in fast growing sectors that will create a strong knowledge capital.

Company Mission: Become thought leaders by defining education in sectors that will matter in the future and also to become the largest provider of career-ready students to industry.

Ethos of the brand: Committed to create innovative learning solutions to enhance the employability potential of University students thus impacting the educational, social, and economic sectors.

Total Number of Employees in the Company: 750

The unique value proposition of the product: the functional, emotional and differentiating product benefits that have contributed to providing an enduring brand experience to customers?

iNurture’s unique value proposition is in redefining the learning experience through its innovatively designed new-age programmes. In alignment with exponential changes in the higher education space, iNurture has been pioneering a state-of-the-art model of career-ready, formal higher education through its new-age programs and learning initiatives since 2009. iNurture’s vision is to build a robust ecosystem in fast growing sectors that will create a strong knowledge capital. With its mission to become the thought leader in higher education by exemplary teaching-learning practices that are aligned with the world of work, iNurture provides an enduring brand experience and has established a position of eminence in higher education in India by gradually becoming the largest provider of career-ready students to industry.

What are the physical, character and personality attributes of the brand that have evoked and inspired consumers’ self-expression and personal identity?

Uniqueness of the product design- in this case our New-Age Programmes and an advanced understanding of the customer market has enabled us to associate with our customers in a more personalized manner. The students associated with our programmes are collaborators in the learning process having a strong sense of pride with our brand as they transform into proud achievers and exemplary professionals. Our university associations are trendsetting in introducing new learning frontiers and this gives a strong sense of identity to our alumni and partners with the iNurture Brand. Alongside, our passion to innovate through technology and consistency to deliver excellence has helped attain huge appreciation in the market.

Please provide an insight into the brand marketing strategies that have effectively penetrated consumers’ psyche, established a meaningful relationship with the target audiences and ensured positive brand perception.

iNurture is a pioneer in enabling career-ready formal higher education in India which has been growing over the past few years by providing new-age experiential learning experiences through the industry, thus bridging the gap between academia and industry. This has been achieved by our passion and commitment to make a difference in the lives of college graduates by making them job-ready.

iNurture’s biggest brand ambassadors are (a) our students, and (b) our University partners. The brand strategy of iNurture is to exemplify the experience of these two stakeholders in a meaningful manner.

From a student perspective, our branding efforts rely on showcasing their academic and co-curricular accolades and their placement prowess. We use digital and social media channels as well as below-the-line strategies to showcase our students as brand ambassadors of our success.

From University partner perspective, our strategy is to conduct joint events, conferences and seminars in new-age domains that will highlight our expertise as a knowledge partner, enable innovative approaches in teaching and learning such as enhanced industry immersion programs, faculty and professional development programs, etc. to brand iNurture as a partner of value.

In essence, our brand value therefore comes from being a solution provider and catalyst of 21st century learning. Our foresight in initiating this model and resilience in creating a strong market presence has ensured positive brand perception and is witnessed through our association with leading institutions in Europe and Asia.

How has the brand extended its presence to the frontiers of internet advertising and social networking? What is the level of significance the brand accords to utilizing social media as a competitive edge?

 As a new age knowledge enterprise, we respect the power of social networking and leverage its different facets for extending our value proposition. From social networking through Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn to microblogging sites such as twitter, and through sharing of events, videos, infographics and blogs on our website, we are actively present on different social media channels to connect with our current and potential customers. Student achievements and accolades across all our University partners are shared on social media channels to showcase the differentiation of our methodologies.

Our aim through these initiatives is to maximize the customer base and showcase the vision of iNurture. Our blogs with focused, relevant insights and webinars with dynamic, engaging content have in particular been instrumental in many conversions. Smart, targeted advertising has enabled us to build customer access and build further engagement through concentrated campaigns that are launched on internet and social media.

It is our presence and showcasing of achievements on various digital and social channels that has enabled us to use these as a strong tool for student acquisition. Currently we are growing admission numbers through digital channels by over a 100% year-on-year.

Outline few key marketing endeavors in the past decade that you feel have been landmark initiatives in reinforcing the legacy of the brands’ promise to influence consumer intent and enhanced the brands’ propensity to drive affirmative consumer action.

iNurture’s brand propensity is strengthened from our strategic focus on building customer loyalty through ‘intelligently nurturing’ students for emerging industries and preparing them for ‘new’ collar jobs. 

In order to attract and engage customers our social media campaigns through Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, etc. have proved very beneficial.

Our regular virtual counselling sessions, webinars, etc. also help strengthen our program visibility and drive positive action from potential customers.

A significant marketing initiative from our end that has helped influence customer intent has been our Program Launch. This judiciously designed endeavor showcases the entire gamut of learning experience that iNurture offers as a Smart University Model and has proved to be very attractive in establishing a concentrated customer base.

Another landmark marketing initiative iNurture has successfully launched is to engage with pre-University students on various hands-on programs in an enriching manner to showcase the strength of our programs.

How has the brand derived strength from innovation as a sustainable  differentiating strategy adding to long-term brand equity? Please provide a few instances of measures implemented towards this goal.

Our success in building a strong and dynamic brand is a result of our commitment towards extraordinary performance while ensuring visibility of our efforts with our customers.

iNurture has been pioneering a unique Industry-Academia learning advantage for students of higher education since the past few years. This model itself is trendsetting.

At the same time, we have been making constant efforts to innovate and diversify our products and services to ensure customer resonance. Our innovative methodologies range from technology enablement to industry upskilling of our students who are part of an evolving nurturing experience ultimately leading them towards becoming stellar professionals.

Our expanding presence across India, our appreciation from international organizations as preferred knowledge partner, our steady growth in terms of number of University partners and a significant rise in student numbers every year are indicators of strong brand equity.

What are the key leadership values that drives the brand.

We have been leaders in the true sense who believe that problems are stepping stones to success. Not only did we think differently and originally at a time when everyone was following a set pattern, but we also decided to lead the change of transforming the higher education system.

Ever since the initiation of the organization in 2009, we have been leading new learning frontiers across the higher education realm, be it designing new-age programs, creating industry immersion experiences in the campuses or leveraging technology to create engaging learning eco-systems. Our efforts have been truly authentic and unparalleled.

This has been largely due to our passion and perseverance to make things happen, our absolute and unwavering commitment to realize our passion, and our growth mindset which motivates us to continue doing it differently.

What type of employee satisfaction programs are conducted by your brand.

The success of any organization is led by its action heroes and that’s what each employee at iNurture is. Considering that our business is a distributed model and we have to ensure standardization and benchmarking of practices till a large extent, it is the individual champions on ground who ensure the efficiency of various processes. Therefore, not just employee satisfaction but resonance with organizational values and mission becomes critical. At iNurture this is achieved by ensuring that our employees remain connected, motivated and effective on all fronts. One such significant and well appreciated initiative is the opportunity and encouragement to our employees to create their career trajectories through demonstrated accomplishments as part of their individual development plans. An interesting initiative that we practice called peer to peer learning has received a lot of traction from the employees. Collaborating on innovative ideas through social media channels and our inhouse tech platform also motivates employees to share their achievements and learn from their peers. We organize a monthly engagement event called Ishay that reinforces a sense of belonging amongst our employees. Our onboarding process is very deftly designed to give a head start to our employees and enable an effective involvement from day one.

How much does your brand emphasis on employee training & development, kindly elaborate.

Investing in learning and development is a critical need at iNurture and we put a lot of emphasis on nurturing of potential. Continuous upgradation of skills and alignment with emerging market needs and technology trends is advocated through individual development plans, webinars, focused learning programs.

What are your brands most effective intangible motivational tools for employees.

Customer obsession, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence and long-term thinking.

Opportunities for meritorious and aspiring individuals, flexibility to contribute to the organizational vision, freedom to innovate and take up new challenges are some of the intangible motivational tools that drive our workforce to aspire and excel.

Kindly elaborate on your existing & potential CSR activities.

Our efforts as part of CSR activities are primarily driven by our vision to provide educational opportunities to maximum people across geographical and socio-economic boundaries. We invest a significant time in associating with organisations with a similar mission to promote education, vocational skills and social business projects. We are keenly exploring health and women empowerment as key areas of involvement. We are also extremely sensitive towards sustainability and would be looking at environment issues as an important area of CSR in the future.

Which area of social responsibility is more significant for your brand.

Empowerment of today’s youth and ensuring equal learning opportunities resulting in creating a productive workforce is the need of the hour for a country like India and we look at this as our critical social responsibility.