Vicki Smith (and Dwayne Gallagher, remotely via Skype) form two-thirds of the senior management of SI-UK, an education agency set up in Japan that has become a trailblazer in onshore international student recruitment in the UK and has also expanded into India and Turkey. They spoke with The PIE.
The PIE: Can you tell me how SI-UK came about?
DG: A few years before setting up Commonwealth Education Consultancy (CoEC) I was living in Korea and I met up with some people from the British Council and some universities and we were looking to open a representative office in Korea. They made a proposal to me to start an office there with a small consortium of universities. However, I decided I didn’t want to stay in the country, so the offer was extended to Japan.
That continued for about three years until we decided that we needed to have more people with management and technology experience and certainly more investors. At that point I was associated with Vicki Smith and Orion Judge on a professional level and made a proposal that we get together and start a company in Tokyo called SI-UK.
SI-UK quickly expanded our operations to offer an IELTS preparation centre. A year later, we opened SI-UK Osaka and a year after that we opened our first London office and Vicki relocated to manage it.
The PIE: Vicki, what were you doing when you first set up?
VS: I was working for a management consultancy in London and I moved to Japan shortly after, actually on holiday. I came across CoEC and I approached them for opportunities because of my computer science and marketing background, I felt that I could bring these skills to the company. I basically worked on their website and database in the early stages, which allowed the company to grow.
“We discovered that a market certainly existed in the UK for onshore recruitment, possibly up to 40% of enrolments for some institutions”
The PIE: Why did you move into the UK?
VS: SI-UK saw an opportunity in the UK whilst in Japan. Initially we wanted to support our Japanese students further and also develop our university relations in-country. We carried out extensive market research, and sent our business proposal to a number of UK universities. In 2007 we discovered that a market certainly existed in the UK for onshore recruitment, possibly up to 40% of recruitment for some institutions.
DG: It was surprising when we started looking at statistics because a lot of universities at that time only had a very small international office devoted to UK-based international student recruitment—if they had one at all. Since then there has been major expansion with some but they still seem to have very small budgets for this area compared to budgets they have for the USA, China or India.
The PIE: Where do all the onshore enrolments come from?
VS: They are studying at language schools, boarding schools, FE colleges, or they are in the final year of their degree programme, looking to go onto a Masters.
The PIE: And the ones who are at language schools, why do you think are they not being catered for in terms of onward progression?
After a number of high-level meetings, we were invited to provide consulting and assistance for Turkish government-sponsored students
VS: The language school can look after them in terms of their English preparation but there are so many options for HE studies that the language schools may not have the staff or expertise to consult on these items. This is where SI-UK can assist students who are looking to progress further and walk away with a Bachelors or a Masters degree.
The PIE: And why do you think they work with you?
VS: First of all they find us on the web or through word-of-mouth and secondly we offer a reputation for quality. We have a huge website now with over a thousand pages which is very heavily optimised for SEO. For our university fairs, we conduct an extensive marketing campaign all over London and in surrounding counties. And students use our services because nine times out of ten we’ll have a counselor that understands their language, our service is free, and we are very centrally located.
The PIE: And can you give me a ballpark figures for how many students you’re bringing into the UK a year from everywhere?
DG: It’s a very sensitive question because of the range of people and clients we’re dealing with and obviously their expectations of us. And it’s hard because every other agent in the world is going to read these statistics, but for Japan we would probably be on an equal level with the other major agent and between the two agencies we would do almost 100% of the students that use agents [for HE].
In the UK I would say that we are probably the largest agent to offer international student recruitment. We bring in a few thousand to UK universities each year. Not necessarily from outside the UK because our Manchester and London office only deal with students that are domiciled in the UK. [more>]
The PIE: Do you have competition in the UK?
VS: We do of course, however the competition is from companies which tend to be focused on one nationality for example China or the Middle East. We offer multi-lingual consulting in languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Russian, Hindi, Gujrati, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Arabic and Spanish.
The PIE: Are universities giving you the same rates as anyone else?
DG: Well I’m not sure about that, I think there is a standard 10%. But we are dealing with a different range of universities and commissions are certainly paid at different levels to different agents, different countries, depending on what they’re doing. Universities will also commit to paid marketing campaigns which obviously assist us within those countries.
The PIE: And how many UK universities do you work with?
DG: It varies market to market but it’s usually a number between 35 and 45. You know in Japan, students are only interested in Russell Group universities or institutions like Bath, York, or SOAS, [or] niche courses of interest whereas some places in India, seven of the top 10 recruiters are modern universities; Greenwich, East London, Liverpool John Moores – universities that we had never worked with as we began in Japan.
“In India, seven of the top 10 recruiters are modern universities”
The PIE: You officially opened in Turkey last month. Why did you choose to go there?
VS: We were approached by an investor at our UK University Fair held in London, who sent his son across to the UK to study. We then began discussions to develop an office offering the same services in Istanbul.
DG: We laid down the foundations for a partnership; SI-UK Turkey, following the exact same procedure and guidelines of all the offices. A certain amount would have to be invested into staff, in technology, renting retail space, marketing, exhibitions, print media, online media, the whole range to make it a success as quickly as possible..
On opening our office we were contacted by education officials from Turkey who had expressed an interest in a UK based company providing free assistance for UK university applications. After a number of high level meetings, we were invited to provide consulting and assistance for Turkish government-sponsored students. They are estimating that in 2013, there will be between 350 to 500 students which fall into this category.
The PIE: Are rankings important in Turkey?
VS: After meeting with a number of students, it is clear that Turkish students are well researched. They are generally interested in a mix of rankings and price.
The PIE: How did SI-UK first get involved with India?
DG: As a solely UK-focused agency, our only method of diversifying has been to expand into other countries. We were also looking at opening offices in America, Canada, Nigeria and other top 10 markets. But when we ran a cost analysis and looked at long-term benefits, India by far was the best choice for us.
In India we have offices in Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai and looking at expansion.
The PIE: Looking ahead, what does the future hold in terms of growth?
DG: Since the foundation of SI-UK, our results have been consistently higher than 30% growth year upon year. Importantly the company has reached an exciting take off stage and we feel that our growth in the coming years will significantly exceed prior years due to offices we’ve established in high volume markets like India and Turkey.
“Since the foundation of SI-UK, our results have been consistently higher than 30% growth year upon year”
Until now it has been quite difficult for us because the two markets and cities that we primarily operate in – Tokyo, Osaka, London and Manchester – are very expensive in terms of floor space and payroll. In India we could operate with the same profit margins per student but with an overhead as little as one tenth the price.
The PIE: Do you have plans to expand to other countries?
VS: Yes. South America and the Middle East are two very interesting markets for us, particularly with Brazil and Colombia’s Science without Borders initiative. We already service a number of Brazilian and Colombian students who visit our office in the UK.
The PIE: What is your opinion on the landscape of UK visas for the next couples of years? Do you foresee any sort of political back peddling?
DG: [Said before May’s announcement of 12/12]: There is speculation that the one year post-study work right might come back. Every Scottish university we speak to says if they do become independent, they will bring that back immediately. Ireland still has one year post-study work visa in place and the Irish universities as we know are aggressively marketing themselves. They are becoming a major competitor to the UK. If anything, I would expect policies are going to ease, they’re going to have to.
The PIE: And Dwayne, given that you’re Canadian, did you never want to set up a branch of SI-Canada?
DG: I don’t think so. The winters are very cold!
- Editorial assistance: Manuela Frei
