KEITA SUDO Chief Executive Officer

BIBO GLOBAL OPPORTUNITY, INC.

Demand for English as a language of business has made non-English speaking countries, even the most nationalist, to embrace it in order to succeed in a more globalized world.

Japan is catching up by making it mandatory for students to learn the English language. This is the reason in the sprouting of various English tutorial facilities in Japan to supplement what the schools offer.

Bibo Global Opportunity, Inc., the number one online English tutorial system in Japan, is headquartered in Manila.

Company CEO Keita Sudo heads a most diverse organization composed of teachers from 80 nationalities and students from all over the world in the most flexible and efficient manner an online system can offer.

Bibo

Bibo will celebrate its 5th anniversary on February 14. Over those years, the company remained faithful to its mission to make the world smaller through tutoring and IT services. Bibo’s flagship service, online English tutoring, is available in various countries through its counterpart online platforms, DMM Eikaiwa and Engoo.

In 2013, the company started its operations with 100 tutors, providing online English lesson to Japanese students only. After gaining public recognition in Japan, Bibo started expanding its services to South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand through Engoo, and then later in some parts of Europe, South America, and Asia in 2015.

The Philippine established company has recruited more than 23,000 homebased online tutors in 80 countries and has provided millions of lessons in a span of 5 years. The diversity in cultural backgrounds among employees and clients (speakers and learners) sets the company apart from their competitors.

Over the years, Bibo worked to always attain a healthy ecosystem to the platform users who are diverse in culture, age, and proficiency in English. Top of the line lesson materials are available for teachers and students; structures are in place for ease of communication and learning; and the directors ensure that the platform is always updated and running 24 hours a day.

So far, so good

Keita, who has been with the company for six years being one of its pioneers, has made the Philippines his second home. Keita, who used to work in the IT field, became Bibo CEO in 2016.

Bibo beats the other 150 companies in Japan offering similar services. “We are number one among these companies since the past three years,” claims Keita. “So far, so good.” Although not a publicly-listed firm, Bibo does not disclose the number of students enrolled in their system, but they do for their teachers or tutors. “We hire a lot of teachers,” he adds stressing they now have 6,500 plus tutors from more than 80 countries. Of these teachers, 2,500 are Filipinos.

According to Keita, they have been “very profitable” especially after becoming the number one English tutorial company in Japan. The company has grown 20 percent in sales in 2017 over 2016. Keita expects to grow at the same rate this year.

Bibo, which falls under the category the IT-BPM, now employs 150 people, most of them managing teachers’ schedule and matching with the schedule of students. The Manila headquarters also does the recruitment processes, check on the English proficiency of teacher applicants, and ensure they are hiring teachers with the right attitude.

“Recruitment is done online, including the training of teachers so all our employees work online,” says Keita.

There is no need for lesson plans, but teachers follow certain modules and are required to use it every time they hold lessons with their students online. The lesson materials are also specially prepared by Bibo and are very useful for teachers and students to follow and discuss.

The agents of Bibo will help students and teachers plot their schedules for a duration of 25 minutes every session to make it easier for students and teachers. Bibo’s good data base also enables continuity in teaching. “It is very structured,” he adds. Students can also choose and reserve the teachers they like. Indeed, there are students who prefer Filipino teachers.

“We hire only the teachers who are qualified,” says Keita. With its stringent criteria, Keita said they have only a 10 percent passing rate among applicants. “So our students are assured of quality teachers, we never compromise the quality of our teachers,” stressed Keita.

Bibo tutors are considered contractors so the company cannot impose certain number of hours for them to teach, but are given flexible schedules so they can work at home or after they are done with their regular day job.

As much as 70 percent of their teachers are part timers and freelancers, but some are making Bibo their primary source of income. A tutor who works 8-10 hours a day at Bibo can earn R30,000 per month on the average.

Diversity Having teachers from 80 countries and students from all over the world makes Bibo a very diverse organization. “Diversity is our biggest feature,” says Keita.

Most of the 150 competitors in Japan are hiring only all-Filipino teaching staff, but in Bibo out of the 6,500 teachers only 2,500 are Filipinos.

Their teachers are categorized as native speakers and standard. The native English language speakers are those from countries such as US, UK, Ireland and Australia. But the standard teachers are hired from countries where English is not a mother tongue but people speak it fluently like the Philippines and other Eastern Europe.

There is also a big difference in price. The standard English speakers can get a subscription rate of 5,500 yen or R2,500 a month, but the native English speakers are three times more expensive.

“Filipinos do not only speak English very fluently, but their personality is also very ‘bibo’ (lively) and energetic,” says Keita. This trait has endeared Filipino teachers to Japanese or Koreans.

While they have teachers in 80 countries, Bibo does not have offices in most. That is the wonder of online.

Majority or 80 percent of Bibo students are Japanese and 10 percent are Koreans, the rest are from all over the world. According to Keita, most of their Japanese clients are not young students anymore but businessmen ranging from 20-40 years of age, who are eager to break into the world of business or are already working and are handling foreign posts.

Most of the Japanese don’t have to speak English because businesses in Japan do not require English.

“As long as they are in Japan, they don’t need English, but these days companies are becoming global with mergers and acquisitions and Japanese firms sometimes take over operations of foreign firms. So, they realize they need to learn English,” he adds.

Other similar platforms though are focusing on children, but Bibo largely caters to businessmen.

Keita also explained that most young Japanese do not really take seriously the English language, but once they finished their degrees they realized they need to learn the language to be able to work abroad or expand their business overseas.

“So the purpose of their English lesson is business,” says Keita adding that only 10-20 percent of their clients are young people, who are still in school from elementary to college.

“Everything is linked digitally so we connect people together and enable diversity,” says Keita adding that their lessons are more of supplements rather than the stringent classroom type of teaching.

Expansion

Keita’s slogan for 2018 is “Challenge and Change” as he seeks to jumpstart the new year by encouraging his staff to keep challenging the current system to derive positive changes.

At present, Bibo has four sites in the Philippines in Makati, Bonifacio Global City, Cebu and Davao. Its BGC office, which was opened 2 years ago, is more of IT development where they have 35 people. Makati is the biggest with 60 plus people and Cebu with 25 while Davao is still small with 5 people. They operate 24 by 7, except Davao.

Aside from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, Bibo also provides language tutorial services to 12 new markets such as Italy, Turkey, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Spain.

“We are expanding to these countries because there is a potential big demand,” he adds. The challenge though is that most of these countries are not used to learning online, as they are used to the traditional classroom setting.

The market in East Asia is also huge. In Korea alone, before a young graduate can join big companies in the country, he is required to present a certification of English language proficiency. So, most Koreans are studying English online.

The next target for Bibo is not just to stick to online tutorial services but to offer offline schools. Since they have a huge pool of English teachers already, Keita said they have enough resources to build the physical schools in Japan and the Philippines.

“If we start offline in Japan, we can deploy teachers from the Philippines,” he adds.

This is to offer flexibility to its clients. Keita also sees better business by having presence in both online and offline. It was smooth sailing for their online business that they think offline could also be an easy target.

To promote its services, Bibo does some marketing campaigns in Japan through TV commercials with their brand ambassador. But most of these marketing efforts are done only in Japan and Korea because the big demand comes from these countries. They also have web marketing campaigns in Spain.

The company’s robust IT system enables them to support the needs of teachers and students.

Empowerment One of their best practices of Bibo is empowering employees where everyone is encouraged to develop and propose new ideas to improve the business. It was easy for the management to entrust the company’s future to young leaders regardless of cultural background.

With that, the mindset of the company is to be very flexible in their approach to business.

For instance, Bibo is now encouraging its people to work at home instead of reporting to the office. This is in consideration of the huge traffic that’s enveloping the whole of Metro Manila.

“Traffic is bad and employees spend four to five hours on the road, it is such a waste of time,” he adds.

“By using online tools they can still be productive at home and still have time with their family, so we have to be flexible with our regulations.”

According to Keita, being a private company adds to their flexibility. “We challenge ourselves most of the time and sometimes we fail, but we never quit,” he adds.

“Don’t be afraid of failure. It is easy for everyone to just follow what others are doing, but without trying new things we cannot innovate. So, I never criticize if my people fail because they will never be challenged.”

To make employees’ life lighter, Bibo has allowed various clubs to proliferate despite its lean organization. They now have 20 clubs from mountain climbing to cooking as the company seeks to provide for work-life balance and make employees happier.

“We offer opportunities to all tutors wherever they may be in the country as long as they can speak fluent English and with internet connection. That is why we call our company Bibo Global Opportunity,” adds Keita.

Over the years that he is in the country, Keita has learned to appreciate the Filipinos’ easy going attitude. “It’s one good feature that Filipinos don’t think seriously for the long term,” says Keita noting that Japanese at 20-30 years of age are so engulfed in thinking what would be their pensions like when they retire so they save lots of money and acquire assets, but most of them are no longer there to enjoy their savings.

“I wonder which mindset is happier, the Japanese who save lots of money they don’t even live to enjoy with or the Filipinos with their ‘live-for-the-day’ attitude,” he adds.

This Filipino attitude is more pronounced in their Filipino teachers. One of his teachers, who has accumulated a four-month salary, declared that she will go on vacation. When he asked why not save the money for the future, he was told, “I have to enjoy, why save money, life is short.” This Filipino psyche has made Keita thinking.

As a manager, Keita likes taking risks stressing they are not all for money. Keita himself wants to push himself outside of his comfort zone.

Just like most Japanese, Keita is a diligent one as he maintains keenness on all suggestions raised by his staff. He loves proposals that are supported by data and details.

Lessons learned

Running a diverse organization as Bibo makes Keita more open minded to accept the differences in each of the different nationalities. As a leader, Keita expects himself to be the role model in the organization.

“We have different background and culture, but now we can manage because we communicate properly. Unless we accept our differences, it is very difficult to manage this company but we listen to everyone because everybody has the right to express his opinion,” says Keita.

For instance, European teachers and clients are more straightforward, but Filipinos are very patient in expressing their opinion.

That is why, every time they hire people one of the critical criteria is the person’s openness to accept others.

“We need people who enjoy the differences and everything online, we must have the same mindset for all,” he adds.

Amid all efforts at keeping their organization sustain that growth trajectory, Keita remains cool and collected. All decisions are based on facts and what is good for the company, he stressed.

“The culture of the company is we must be cool because decisions based on emotions cannot resolve anything. So, be cool, don’t be emotional,” he adds.