Beacon Group of Hong Kong: Finding Light in the Shadow Education Industry

By: Christopher Marquis and Qi Li and Guy Leung

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis: After more than 25 years of operation, Beacon Group had grown from having 3 small classrooms on the fourth floor of a commercial building, to a network of 21 centers across Hong Kong with over 60,000 students enrolled per year. The key long-term challenge for the industry was that due to low birth rates in Hong Kong, over the next decade there will be a precipitous decline in the number of senior secondary school students, who account for the lion's share of market demand for tutorial services as they prepare for the Hong Kong university entrance exam. Given this impending demographic shift, Beacon Group needed to find new sources of demand for their services. Options included expanding into Mainland China, establishing new on-line offerings to lower costs and further to introduce new products and services to appeal to a more diverse set of students. In addition to this core challenge, the case provides opportunities to discuss the following topics: how a family business can scale in the face of numerous challenges, and how leaders can design creative incentive systems to attract and retain key professional talent.