One of the challenges faced by businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic is having to control costs and improve operational efficiency, while managing a dispersed workforce that is primarily working from home.
For online learning businesses such as the Bangkok-based English learning platform Globish Academia, this challenge became an opportunity.
With the widespread closure of schools and the need for students of all ages to continue with learning from home after the outbreak struck last year, a rush to digitise tutoring businesses followed. Globish Academia, however, was already ahead of the curve and leading in a more specialised market: live online English learning.
During this period, the company saw its class enrolment more than double from 250 per day to more than 600 in March. Gittitouch Apisaksirikul, co-founder and chief operating officer, believes the momentum will continue.
"The live online learning market in Thailand is growing faster than the rest of the education industry," says Gittitouch Apisaksirikul, co-founder and chief operating officer of Globish Academia.
"The live online learning market in Thailand is growing faster than the rest of the education industry because it is relatively new in Thailand. It is growing at approximately 35% each year," he said.
During challenging times, many companies look to scale back their operations and office needs. For Globish Academia, however, this was not the case. With close to 120 employees, compared with just 35 only a few years ago, its focus was to ensure flexibility and scalability of office space.
It saw traditional office spaces as too restrictive to support its growth and needs, so it opted for a co-working space at WeWork Spring Tower in Ratchathewi.
"It was not practical or feasible for us to search for traditional types of offices, with standard leases," said Mr Gittitouch. "We would have been restrained to a space that caters to only a certain number of people and that would be unable to support our plans to scale in the near future.
"A co-working space matches our needs given its flexibility in supporting our growth plans and also helping us enrich our employee experience."
Globish Academia's classes cater to three target segments. The first is working adults, followed by young people aged from 7 to 14, and the third is a business-to-business product that can be tailored to fit each client's requirements.
Anticipating the trend towards more live online learning, Globish Academia developed an online classroom platform to support its classes. It also plans to make the platform available for other e-tutoring schools looking to take lessons online.
Globish Academia partnered with a Chinese language school to support its expansion into live online learning, and there are plans to expand into Vietnam.
Mr Gittitouch said his company differentiates itself from international competitors because it emphasises the need for localisation. This gives Globish the advantage to better plan and align with Thai students' learning needs, helping to address the challenges they face in learning English.
"Learning a new language can often be intimidating, but our localised approach and situation-based learning helps put our students at ease and instils enjoyment and relevance in the learning process," he said.
While the focus is on live online English classes, he sees the potential in offering in-person workshops.
The online education market is expected to continue growing in parallel with the growth of Thailand's digital infrastructure. Currently most of Globish Academia's customers are from Bangkok and other large cities in Thailand, but within five years, improved internet connectivity should boost the adoption of online learning, said Mr Gittitouch.
While Globish Academia aims to help its customers to grow, both personally and professionally, it is also committed to helping its employees develop, he said.
With business continuity planning a key element in future-proofing businesses, Globish Academia also reflects how WeWork has played an essential role in cultivating a creative work culture, and an environment that the team enjoys.
"My team really enjoys the WeWork environment," Mr Gittitouch said. "The thoughtfully designed workspace has definitely helped us increase our employee productivity and performance.
"The layout and design at WeWork Spring Tower help support our varied functions and needs -- by having separate rooms and space allocated to functions that might need more privacy -- finance, sales and so on. The common areas are great breakout areas for the product teams to brainstorm new ideas and the meetings rooms also facilitate our online classes."