Raghesh Menon: Facilitating Opportunities For Trainers By Creating A Digital Authority
Raghesh Menon
Founder & CEO
Although the Indian training industry has undergone a seismic digital shift, there still exists a significant gap between opportunities and trainers/coaches. People with game changing skills are unable to share their knowledge due to lack of personal brand and connect with the right audience. Bridging this crucial gap, Scooppin helps trainers to profile, position, collaborate and monetize their capabilities serving as a single branding and marketing tool for them. While offering a platform that supports trainers, it also helps corporate organizations connect with the right trainers by analyzing their experience, expertise, and potential.
Raghesh along with his Co-founder and Partner Girish Panicker inventively maneuvered to bring digital touch and facilitate an authority to trainers. He shares more about his brainchild with CEO Insights.
What prompted you toestablish Scooppin? What was your primary goal while setting up the company?
Coming from an engineering background and working in operations with brands like TCS and others, gave me a stronghold on both technological and operational aspects of businesses. After 12+ years of my journey as a corporate employee, I gained comprehensive
knowledge of operations and chose to be a consultant.Prior to starting Scooppin.com, In 2013, along with Ex-VP of HDFC Life, I was instrumental in devising a technology platform for preventive healthcare mechanisms.
Throughout my career, I observed that the training and coaching segment in India had a huge untapped potential. In fact, the idea and need for having a marketplace for coaches started way back when I was with TCS. In the last three decades, all other industry segments have flourished, except the training Industry. I have always had the affinity to take up internal training in every organization I worked for and observed the industry closer. Also, the coaching segment never leveraged technology until then.
While there was so much glitch in the market, the trainers were facing issues such as fewer job opportunities, unstable income, and no job security. Despite lakhs of people working as freelance trainers, there is absolutely no social security for them. And, it was tough for corporate organizations to find the right trainer. Scooppin.com was coined in 2017 to resolve these problems and create unconnected market access to trainers in India.
How did you craft Scooppin as a unique marketplace?
While our core competence is to connect trainers and their deserving market using technology, we have come up with a couple of strategies to build the trainers' personal brand. Walking into an MNCs with a CV is not apt for the trainers. We don't want them to be portrayed as job seekers but as knowledge givers. Therefore, at no cost, we offer them an SEO complaint website and dynamic website management tool to establish their online presence and showcase their expertise.
After profiling and positioning the Trainers and coaches, we connect these profiles with the appropriate audience on a realtime basis. A platform where corporates and vendors can put up the live requirements and the system will automatically tag it to appropriate trainers with e-mail feeds. The vital unique aspect of our platform is the pay for the value system where
Throughout my career, I observed that the training and coaching segment in India had a huge untapped potential. In fact, the idea and need for having a marketplace for coaches started way back when I was with TCS. In the last three decades, all other industry segments have flourished, except the training Industry. I have always had the affinity to take up internal training in every organization I worked for and observed the industry closer. Also, the coaching segment never leveraged technology until then.
Scooppin's started its journey with 10 members and today it has grown into an intellectual community of 10 thousand trainers
While there was so much glitch in the market, the trainers were facing issues such as fewer job opportunities, unstable income, and no job security. Despite lakhs of people working as freelance trainers, there is absolutely no social security for them. And, it was tough for corporate organizations to find the right trainer. Scooppin.com was coined in 2017 to resolve these problems and create unconnected market access to trainers in India.
How did you craft Scooppin as a unique marketplace?
While our core competence is to connect trainers and their deserving market using technology, we have come up with a couple of strategies to build the trainers' personal brand. Walking into an MNCs with a CV is not apt for the trainers. We don't want them to be portrayed as job seekers but as knowledge givers. Therefore, at no cost, we offer them an SEO complaint website and dynamic website management tool to establish their online presence and showcase their expertise.
After profiling and positioning the Trainers and coaches, we connect these profiles with the appropriate audience on a realtime basis. A platform where corporates and vendors can put up the live requirements and the system will automatically tag it to appropriate trainers with e-mail feeds. The vital unique aspect of our platform is the pay for the value system where
users have to pay only when they really want to pursue an opportunity viewing the opportunities is absolutely free.
As a pioneer of this distinctive platform, what effort are you making to thrive in the industry scenario?
Firstly, we are having an immense grip on automation and technology. We take pride in saying that there is no other platform in the market that is leveraging the power of technology as much as we do. Secondly, we are building a biggest digital ready trainer community with the focus on making the trainers reach a wider audience and connect conveniently at an affordable price. Inter estingly, Scooppin was started as a 10 member WhatsApp group and today we have more than 10 thousand trainers connected through various platforms with us.
What are the strategies/methods you put forward to generate great value for your organization?
To give enough value and opportunities for the trainers and break the market uncertainty. For this we are focusing on digital transformation by analyzing the pain points of our trainers.
Our culture and strong bond with the community who are supporting mutual growth is another aspect that is adding value to the business. I believe that we wouldn't have been in this position if we only had the product and not a community of loyal users.
How did you handle the sudden pitfall in the coaching segment during the pandemic?
When the lockdown was announced initially, our trainers started losing contracts. It left us petrified! However, we started an initiative to engage the trainers with master classes for the next 60 days through WhatsApp. In June 2020, we started aiding them on blended training techno logies and helped to create e-courses. We have now launched Scooppin 2.0 a full fledged portfolio website and Scooppin 3.0 for the market connect and email feeds.
Raghesh Menon, Founder & CEO, Scooppin
An adroit business coach and entrepreneur with enormous expertise in operations, technology, and consulting, Raghesh was awarded as the Asia's Most Promising Business Leader 2020-21 by Economic Times.
As a pioneer of this distinctive platform, what effort are you making to thrive in the industry scenario?
Firstly, we are having an immense grip on automation and technology. We take pride in saying that there is no other platform in the market that is leveraging the power of technology as much as we do. Secondly, we are building a biggest digital ready trainer community with the focus on making the trainers reach a wider audience and connect conveniently at an affordable price. Inter estingly, Scooppin was started as a 10 member WhatsApp group and today we have more than 10 thousand trainers connected through various platforms with us.
What are the strategies/methods you put forward to generate great value for your organization?
To give enough value and opportunities for the trainers and break the market uncertainty. For this we are focusing on digital transformation by analyzing the pain points of our trainers.
Our culture and strong bond with the community who are supporting mutual growth is another aspect that is adding value to the business. I believe that we wouldn't have been in this position if we only had the product and not a community of loyal users.
How did you handle the sudden pitfall in the coaching segment during the pandemic?
When the lockdown was announced initially, our trainers started losing contracts. It left us petrified! However, we started an initiative to engage the trainers with master classes for the next 60 days through WhatsApp. In June 2020, we started aiding them on blended training techno logies and helped to create e-courses. We have now launched Scooppin 2.0 a full fledged portfolio website and Scooppin 3.0 for the market connect and email feeds.
Raghesh Menon, Founder & CEO, Scooppin
An adroit business coach and entrepreneur with enormous expertise in operations, technology, and consulting, Raghesh was awarded as the Asia's Most Promising Business Leader 2020-21 by Economic Times.