Abstract:

The business education market is undergoing significant changes, both quantitative (the growing market volume, emerging new players) and qualitative (the changing market structure of the market, newly developed educational products, forms, and formats). The high market growth rates and prospects attract the attention of large companies that invest heavily in the educational field. According to the consulting company McKinsey & Company, over ten years (since 2010), the global investment in learning products has grown almost 40 times and in 2021 amounted to $20.8 billion.

Russian commercial Edtech companies demonstrate high growth rates: the total annual revenue of Russian Edtech companies, according to edtechs.ru, for 2022 amounted to about $1 billion, and for the first three quarters of 2023, they showed a 40% increase compared to the same period of the previous year. A large share of this market is occupied by organizations that are part of the platform ecosystems of large Russian companies such as Yandex, VK, SBER, and so on.

Platform ecosystems are significantly changing the competitive environment in many markets, including educational ones. Where ecosystems emerge, competition rises to new levels, and organizations outside ecosystems find it increasingly difficult to maintain competitiveness. At the same time, there are many examples in our country of this kind of management innovation in network interactions between universities and ecosystem educational structures. Thus, back in 2020, the Russian company Skillbox, in collaboration with Russian state universities, launched online programs for bachelor’s, master’s, and MBA degrees.

The purpose of this research is to analyze the development and transformation of the Russian business education market and assess the development prospects of the key players in this market, including state universities. For traditional business education leaders, an important strategic decision is whether to join ecosystems or pursue a self-sustaining, independent strategy. The complexity of this issue has much to do with a core risk in the development of platform ecosystems: the mistakes of the “weakest” participant in the ecosystem will affect the brand and reputation of others.

The article analyzes the key factors and risks of making strategic decisions for business education leaders in Russia in the context of the rapid development of platform ecosystems.

Keywords:

Business education, higher education, platform ecosystems, online education.