Technology has improved significantly in the last 20 years to the point where it is now quite easy and cost effective to provide online tutoring services. While many independent tutors and tutoring companies see this as a favorable change in the industry, it also poses many threats to existing companies. Many articles discuss the advantages and disadvantages of online tutoring from the student’s perspective; This article will explore this topic from the perspective of the tutoring business.
Advantage
The availability of technology for online tutoring is more advantageous for new tutors or tutoring companies that are not yet established in the market. Online tutoring requires low start-up costs, opens the tutor to a much larger market, and offers more flexibility for scheduling. Let’s take a look at each of these benefits one at a time:
Lower entry barriers
Although many freelance tutors also have low start-up costs, if you are a tutoring company and decide to go the online route, you can avoid many of the expenses associated with setting up a traditional tutoring company. Traditional businesses often require an office for administration or where mentoring, marketing through local media, driving to meetings for prospective clients, etc. take place. Online tutoring companies do not require an office other than a home office and they definitely do not require a building to teach students. Online marketing is lower cost and can be targeted more directly than traditional marketing, and talking to customers can be done online or over the phone. These low start-up costs make it much easier for new businesses to start online.
Largest market
Traditional tutoring companies are limited by geography – they are unable to cost-effectively serve students outside of their geographic area due to time constraints related to transportation and cost of transportation. For this reason, tutoring companies have much smaller markets and can only enter new markets by adding new locations. Online tutoring companies do not face this limitation. They can communicate with anyone with an Internet connection and the only real limitation is language. For this reason, many people prefer to start an online tutoring company in order to reach a much larger market. This can be a very good strategy if your company teaches a highly specialized subject that would not have enough people locally to support the business.
Tutoring companies may also hire tutors from a much broader area and may be more successful in finding high-quality teachers in the subjects they offer.
Flexibility
Online tutoring companies have more flexibility as they can choose to teach students in different time zones. Tutors who are only available to teach late at night can easily teach students from a later time zone where it is afternoon. This makes it easier for independent tutors to tailor their tutoring to their personal or work schedule.
Lower operating costs
The ongoing operating costs of running an online tutoring business are also lower than traditional tutoring. Some of the eliminated costs come in the form of building leases, telephone, transportation, and marketing. Online tutors can do everything from home, they can use free or low-cost online phones like Skype to communicate, and they don’t have to spend money driving to the tutoring office or clients’ homes.
Disadvantages
Many of the advantages of online tutoring can also pose challenges for tutoring companies. We’ll look at the downsides below, one at a time.
Lower entry barriers
Low barriers to entry make online tutoring attractive to tutoring startups, but for incumbents this is negative as it makes it easier for startups to enter the market and compete with them. Ultimately, this leads to more price competition and lower profit margins.
Competition from other markets and other countries
Online tutoring overcomes the geographic barrier, which is also a disadvantage for existing tutoring companies. This means that instead of facing only competition from tutoring companies in their immediate market, they now face competition from tutors in other parts of the country and in other countries as a whole. Many online tutors are from countries like India where the cost of living is much lower. They can teach American students online and charge a fee that is still much lower than the standard fees in the United States, but still well above the fee they would earn for tutoring in their own country.
Technological limitations of students
While most people have a personal computer at home and access to the Internet, many students who need tutoring do not have the technology to receive online tutoring. In addition to a computer, a high-speed internet connection is ideal, a headset and microphone are needed to speak to the tutor, and depending on the topic, hardware such as a writing board may be required. This means that if your company wants to provide only online tutoring, there will be many students that you will not be able to reach.
Effectiveness
While online tutoring can be effective, there are certain subjects where face-to-face communication and explaining concepts on a sheet of paper are more effective than online communication. It can also be more challenging to keep students engaged during online tutoring, which can have a negative effect on student progress.
Online tutoring creates opportunities and challenges for tutoring companies. By understanding and evaluating these challenges, mentoring companies will be better prepared to respond to them and adapt their business strategies to the changes that the industry brings.