Nurturing foreign education dreams

Jamboree a specialised preparation, coaching and training institute for admissions abroad has reached great heights. Vineet Gupta, Director, Jamboree institute, shares his aspirations on taking the franchise route.

Ramanjit Kaur (RK): Could you please shed some light on the origin, growth and success of Jamboree?

Vineet Gupta (VG): Jamboree means ‘a meeting place of lively people’. We are the first company in India to have started organised courses for SAT®/GRE®/GMATTM/TOEFL®/IELTS and help students get admissions in right universities abroad. Founded in 1993, Jamboree attempted to fill the information gap in education abroad. Back then, the only information available on education abroad was through friends and family networks staying or studying abroad. Thus, only a small percentage of the interested students could benefit from such limited resources.

In the last 17 years, we have helped more than 35000 students nurture their dreams for studying abroad. With 13 centres across seven cities, we are the leading educational company in India.

RK: What inspired Jamboree to take the franchise route to expand? What difference has the company noticed after adopting the franchise way?

VG: It is not possible for Jamboree to open its own centre in every city. Moreover, we also get lot of enquiries from cities we are not present. With the view to expand quickly, we went in for franchising. This would enable more people to get access to our products and services. We do realise the benefits of franchising as we are getting serious enquiries from cities where we never thought of opening before.

RK: What practices and initiatives have you introduced in Jamboree?

VG: In franchising, it is important to be able to provide the same quality of services and user experience across different locations. Since we are already present in seven cities and also have centres overseas, we have the competency to duplicate our success. However, we have now gone in for standardised manuals and procedures that will help franchisees to adapt to our processes very quickly.

RK: What are the eligibility criteria for selecting the franchisees of your company?

VG: Our first requirement is to have partners who are like minded and who share our commitment and passion to provide excellent education and are able to deliver our courses effectively. In addition, they should be able to bring in the required investment and demonstrate their ability and competence to be able to run the centres in an excellent manner.

RK: How many outlets do you presently have? What are your future target locations to expand?

VG: Presently we have four company owned centres in Delhi, one each in Gurgaon, Chandigarh and three in Bengaluru. We are also present in Chennai, Mumbai and in Dubai. As of now we have one franchised outlet in Jaipur. We want to be present across all major cities of India.

RK: What kind of training and support a franchisee will get after partnering with your company?

VG: The brand Jamboree is associated with quality coaching. Other than the fact that our franchisees get to leverage our brand, Jamboree will extend intellectual property support, operational support, assistance in site selection and marketing support. We would also provide internal support as well as training and recruitment support.

RK: Have you faced any challenges while establishing your business? If yes, what were they and how did you overcome those challenges?VG: In the service industry, it is sometimes easy to deliver great quality outputs in short spells but it is a challenge to be able to deliver great quality over a sustained period of time. Constant focus and training can help overcome this.

RK: What are the company’s future plans in terms of expansion through franchising?

VG: We are looking to expand in at least 10 more cities in the next two years. We also plan to open centres in selected cities in Asia.