Web-based learning can help busy professional training and coaching firms drastically increase their client bookings, breaking a persistent market bottleneck caused by a lack of trained coaching professionals.
Achara Juicharern, managing director of AcComm
"I am booked from now until March 2019," said Achara Juicharern, managing director of Thai executive coaching firm AcComm. A one-on-one meeting with Ms Achara can set executives back 15,000-20,000 baht an hour.
Coaching sessions, in which agencies teach clients how to train their employees, can run for days. In spite of steep prices, demand continues to increase, which has prompted an explosion of firms and certified executive coaches in the country.
"Five years ago there were no certified coaches in Thailand, but today there are 30 with level-two certification, including myself, and 100 with level-one certification," she said.
There are more than 30,000 certified coaches worldwide, up from a few hundred when Ms Achara started her business 12 years ago.
Demand has been driven by a broadening of the customer pool. Previously, AcComm only served large corporations, working exclusively at the C-level. Now the firm works extensively with middle managers and small businesses.
Fear of technological disruption may be behind this broad-based demand for soft skills consulting.
"A lot of the technical skills done by human employees before are now being taken over by machines. Employees now realise that soft skills like communication and leadership are the things that will keep them on the job," she said.
But one job that is hard to replace is that of coaches, who are in the business of making people better at quintessentially human tasks like conveying empathy and motivating clients.
"I am not saying we can't be replaced by machine learning, but that day is still far away," said Ms Achara.
Bringing in new employees without the necessary skills has constrained the growth of these businesses for years, especially in Thailand. Most coaching firms now require their employees to be certified, which has put them in a fight for the same 100 individuals, who command increasingly high salaries.
"My firm personally doesn't require employees to be certified, but the hiring process takes at least a year, and the training process involves new employees following me personally to all engagements for at least six months. I have to be very careful who I hire because a [bad] experience could easily damage our reputation," she said.
AcComm has grown at an average rate of 15-20% per year over the last 12 years, bringing on board one or two new coaches per year.
But Thai companies are increasingly warming to the idea of receiving at least part of the training online. Instead of imparting the information in person, scarce coaches can be allocated to tasks where machines cannot yet take the wheel, like help with public speaking.
Redeployment is a term widely used in transitioning industries to suggest at least some of the employees replaced by technology will now be employed in higher-value functions. While the term sounds disingenuous in an industry like banking, which has recently been in the spotlight for letting go of tens of thousands of employees, it holds a much truer ring in the medical and coaching professions, for example, where the supply of professionals has lagged well behind demand.
Today about 50% of Ms Achara's clients purchase a hybrid programme with an online component. The price is very similar to that of the in-person course, she said, which has padded the company's margins. Price reductions are not on the table for now.
"We usually sell the online option as an added benefit to the traditional course. For example, it makes the programme more flexible for executives who can't afford to spend three whole days in training. It also helps with recall, since clients can access the videos after the in-person component is over," said Ms Achara.
While online training can represent a boon for coaches looking to overcome their staffing limitations, it also represents a competitive threat. Companies like AcComm have built a reputation in the country for decades, but a lot of the online material they licence and then sell comes from international coaches. Smaller upstarts could acquire the same material and repackage it more cheaply.
She said most coaching solutions have some degree of personalisation. While the underlying material is the same, the case studies are chosen for particular companies, said Ms Achara. Experienced coaches remain a key ingredient for success for most clients.
"Surveys we've conducted indicate that clients believe the most important factor in learning the material is the instructor," she said.