Back to top

Mark Hsu, Envision Recruit, Taiwan

In most of Asia the agency industry is highly fragmented and so when you go to international events like agent workshops you’re seeing maybe 1% of the agencies out there. There’s no way a school is actually capturing the whole market...
October 12 2012
5 Min Read

Taiwan’s Envision Recruit runs a collection of companies offering marketing, test preparation, education placement and other services in Taiwan, China and Thailand. We caught up with founder Mark Hsu for the lowdown on Taiwan’s shifting market.

The PIE: Where did the idea for Envision Recruit come from?

Envision Recruit grew as an extension of my experience as an agency. What I found was that I had attended a lot of these international networking events, but the problem was that the schools were still having a hard time overcoming the last mile in converting leads into enrolments. That was my reason for starting it.

The PIE: Why do you think schools find it so difficult to go the last mile?

In Taiwan, and in most of Asia, the agency industry is highly fragmented and so when you go to international events like agent workshops you’re seeing maybe 1% of the agencies out there. So an agency has to have the resources to fly out to events – even though we are getting comped for our hotel rooms and attendance – but you still need to have the means to buy the airfare.

“On a per capita basis Taiwan is probably the world’s second biggest source market”

So Envision Recruit put a handbook together showing that there are 350 active agencies in Taiwan and that at any of these agent workshops maybe two or three would show up. So there’s no way a school is actually capturing the whole market. Number two, I would say less than 3% of agents have English language websites. So if you’re a non Chinese speaker just Googling in English you’re not going to find the agency names.

The PIE: So schools are missing opportunities in the Taiwan market?

Yes. I saw that schools were spending a lot of money on attending events, workshops, conferences and thinking that “I have got Taiwan covered”; or think that Taiwan is maybe a dead or dormant market. But if you look at the statistics, Taiwan is still the fifth most important source country for the US. Pound for pound, on a per capita basis it’s probably the world’s second biggest source market behind South Korea because our population is only twenty-three million.

“When you go to international events like agent workshops you’re seeing maybe 1% of the agencies out there”

The PIE: Do you help broker relationships of meeting with agents for your clients?

We have two solutions. One is a la carte, so if you just want to test things out we have this handbook available for sale; and we run an in-country agent workshop at which we can represent overseas schools on their behalf so they don’t need to fly out. What we’re doing right now is a monthly agent workshop.

It’s a relatively inexpensive multi-school info-session. It’s more lecture style than speed dating. We don’t need to comp the agents so schools save on that; if it’s a half day session we just offer tea and coffee. If it’s a full day session we throw in lunch.

The PIE: Can you tell me more about what Envision Recruit offers?

Before we started running events for language schools, previously we were running information sessions for top business schools such as the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School. So we would coordinate the logistics of setting up an information session at a five star hotel. And then we charge the schools an execution fee to attract guests for the information sessions. We’ve been doing this for three years.

The PIE: Are you helping agents meet these schools?

No. Business schools want help with brand building. We also help Cornell University’s hospitality school, which has a campus at Nangyang Technological University, Singapore – we help them with media buying, placing advertorials and creating marketing materials.

The PIE: When you do these seminars for students, how do you find the students?

For the MBAs it was pretty natural because we ran probably the most successful MBA placement consultancy in Taiwan. So we were already helping students apply and we just used our database of these contacts. We also have a very strong Facebook presence, running multiple highly “liked” Facebook fan pages for language travel and prospective MBA applicants, as well as a very strong offline presence through giving free career workshops at some of the top universities in Taiwan.

The PIE: Do people still like to use an agency in Taiwan?

I think direct is the trend. If I had to bet, I’d say ten years from the now the agency industry will decline with agencies being less and less and important. That certainly has been my experience.

“If I had to bet, I’d say ten years from the now the agency industry will decline”

Our business these days is primarily derived from “high-touch” clients where we are really engaging with the students for 1-2 years, coaching them and sometimes offering tutoring services to boost their test scores so that we can position them to gain admission into top universities. We work with about 500 students a year, about 100 are enrolled in our test preparation classes domestically in Taiwan, about 30 attend undergraduate, about 300 attend graduate school and another 20 attend boarding school (high school).

In terms of student numbers, language school students comprise about 20% of our total students but the revenue generated is approximately 5% of our firm’s total revenue.

The PIE: So what proportion of students would you say go through agents versus direct booking?

My feeling is that a lot of students go through a site like ApplyESL.com, which ironically claims to be a “non agent” in their online advertisement when in fact they are also compensated on a commission basis. This is because in Taiwan there is a perception that agents are shady, so ApplyEsl.com has fairly good market penetration in Taiwan. And so I’d say about 40-50% probably use an agent but that’s a big decline from previous years.

“The market is shrinking and the nature of the demand is shifting”

The PIE: In terms of the outbound market, which countries are popular?

I think it doesn’t change. The US is number one, followed by the UK, either Canada or Australia, then New Zealand. If we factor in working holiday, then Australia would be number one for short-term travel.

The PIE: And in terms of courses?

We do mostly degrees, because people are more willing to pay a premium, so it’s a more valuable market financially. If there are any trends, it’s that the market is shrinking and the nature of the demand is shifting. While the total study abroad market is not increasing, there is a clear pick-up in demand for boarding schools or undergraduate programmes particularly among the richer families who are more inclined to invest in their children at an earlier stage in their lives.

The trend in Taiwan and elsewhere in the developed parts of Asia is that families are having fewer children. Most families now just have 1 or 2 kids, but on average the spending per child is higher.

Envision Recruit’s companies include Envision Recruit, Top Admit, EnvisionPrep and StudyWithoutBorders.

1
Comments
Add Your Opinion
Show Response
Leave Your Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *