Anthology, the US based global ed-tech enterprise solutions company which has an R&D centre in Chennai, plans to grow its presence by on-boarding new customers in the existing geographies and venturing into new markets, armed with new products in artificial intelligence (AI).
Bruce Dahlgren, global CEO, Anthology Inc, who was recently in Chennai, in an exclusive interaction with FE, said that the major growth area for the company will be the AI products and its ability to bring them to use in the higher education space. “Another key growth aspect is to going back to the current customer base with more innovations and thirdly entering into new markets,” he said.
The global ed-tech enterprise solutions market is growing by 9% to 10% globally and the company wants to grow faster than the industry. “On the AI front, lot of development has been made in the Chennai centre,” he said.
He said that the company is solely focused on the higher education sector within the ed-tech space. “Basically, we provide end-to-end software technology solutions, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) for higher education entities such as universities. One of the largest ed-tech companies in this space, we are the first ed-tech company to come out with an AI product for higher education front. We believe that is a major disruption and we are at the forefront of the AI technology,” he said. The company had recently launched an AI product that helps the faculty in improving the learning process.
Anthology which has its engineering and product development teams in India, supports more than 150 million users in 80 countries. It has around 4,000 employees, out of which 1,200 plus are in India. The Chennai product development centre houses more than 300 employees.
“India is absolutely critical to the success of this company. Approximately 25% of total workforce is in India and that signifies the importance the company attaches to this market, ” Dahlgren said.
The Indian entity takes up research & development and innovation apart from services and support. “ Lot of administration and functional areas for the company that are run from here in India,” he said.
In India, the company has presence in Chennai and Bengaluru. It is the combination of two big ed-tech companies namely Anthology and Blackboard resulting in the formation of the new Anthology. “Both Anthology and Blackboard had presence in India,” said Dahlgren said.
Raj Mruthyunjayappa, chief digital officer and president, India, Anthology, said the company has already made investments to establish its India footprint. “ With the new education policy in place, ed-tech is going to be the centre piece for all the growth that are going to happen in higer education institutions,” he said. In India, the company is actively engaged with higher education ministry on the roadmap on the roll out of technology-oriented platforms, he added.
Anthology has around 60 SaaS products and works with 450 partners. Around 1000 ITI’ s in Maharashtra are powered by Anthology and 200 million Indian youth have already benefitted from the company’s platform.