Job Discussion Forums

[PAULH]

Article in the Japanese Asahi which says that NOVA has made losses of 3,000,000,000 yen.

http://www.asahi.com/business/update/0512/173.html

Gist of the article:

NOVA has over 1000 branches and because of the rapid increase on the number of new schools opening there has been a conflict between neigboring branches over attracting students leading to a yearly loss of 30 million dollars. They posted a special loss of 20 billion yen. Part of this is blamed on too many schools in the same area and divisive managers leading to a drop in quality.

NOVA is expecting to close at least 23 branches in the near future.


Considering Nova is the largest employer of foreigners in Japan, I'm surprise that none of the English newspapers (e.g. The Japan Times, The Daily Yomuiri, The Asahi - English edition) have published anything, perhaps I should wait until tomorrow.

Here's a link to the JASDAQ if anyone is interested:
http://www.jasdaq.co.jp/ir/show.do?stock=4655&type=00&lang=E

Any other news?

Cheers,

[angrysoba]

The impending death of NOVA has been announced more than once before. They've been bailed out more than once before by their parent company too.

[PAULH]

[seanmcginty]

There was a brief article about it here:

http://www.crisscross.com/jp/news/372508

I remember even 6 or 7 years ago when I was working for GEOS the company head office people talked about how NOVA was going to screw itself over by opening too many locations too close to each other. GEOS had itself had some problems with this, with the managers of some schools actually trying to steal students away from neighboring GEOSs.

A part of me kind of feels "serves the idiots right", but of course if NOVA goes down they'll take a huge number of teachers with them, so I kind of hope they pull their heads out of their butts and turn things around.

[womblingfree]

[Willy_In_Japan]

The GEOS I worked at was closed. It was 3 train station stops away from the closest other GEOS.

I was just glad that I wasn't there when it went down. I was getting enough blame for the sales levels when I was there.

[luckyloser700]

If NOVA doesn't do well to save face this time, this could be a bigger hit than many are guessing it will be. But, once the smoke settles, the appropriate amount of schools have been closed, and many unhappy teachers have found themselves reassigned or without the possibility of contract renewal, it should be back to business as normal. As long as NOVA's tuition remains a lot cheaper than the competion's, they'll still attract students. Expect to see even more campaign ads on TV this year.

[sidjameson]

I would guess that the rise of these interent teacher introduction agencies are part to blame as well. Students can find their own teacher and save considerable money, I presume.

[patsensei]

How many times would Nova be bigger than it's closest rival? Would not this loss be a drop in the ocean to them?

[PAULH]

[Temujin]

I can vouch for Nova having money troubles, but there's certainly no shortage of students, at least not here in Kyushu.

Likelihood aside though, I think the most important question to ask is what would you advise current Nova teachers to do?

[PAULH]

[ironopolis]

[Temujin]

It's also important to point out that Nova's other major problem at the moment is a shortage of teachers.

[wangtesol]

Berlitz also has money problems from having opened too many branches too quickly, and so they had to let teachers go, but instead of reducing teachers through contracts expiring and natural attrition, some managers deliberately dismissed some teachers in the middle of their contracts.

Expect the same from Nova. When the 23 schools close and teachers need to be reduced, pinhead managers are going to take the opportunity to get even and fire some people they don't like, and then use the excuse that they dismissed the teacher due to financial problems.