Having created a niche for herself in education sector, Kavita Rathor started her journey 15 years back with her first preschool, launched her school brand SANFORT in December 2009 and has expended its presence to 87 locations in such a short span. The founder director talks to Elets News Network (ENN) about her journey
The activities and curriculum of SANFORT is based on the U. K. concept of preschool education that bids unique and quality preschool education and help the children grow in harmonious environment. We started our first preschool almost 15 years back with no great idea, experience or understanding, but lots of passion & fascination towards early childhood education. Even the parents that time were not very much aware about the importance of preschool education. As a result even after putting our best effort, we had only 18 admissions in the first year, but we never lost courage and patience. We kept on working hard, hired more experienced staff, adopted innovative marketing strategy and gave our best services to those 18 students. Each one of those 18 students became our brand ambassador and gradually we started getting good admissions. After running our first Pre-school successfully for almost seven years, we started our 2nd school and then 3rd.
Awards and Accolades
Sanfort’s contribution in the preschool industry is well acknowledged by leading print and electronic media. Kavita Rathor’s contribution in the education sector is recognised several times. She was recently awarded as ‘The Women Entrepreneur of the Year’ for her commendable contribution in the field of education. The success story of Sanfort is covered by plethora of leading newspapers of the country. After winning several awards, Sanfort is now listed among the top 100 franchise opportunities.
We stand apart
S. K. Rathor, Co-founder & Managing Director – SANFORT group said, we have never thought of franchise business but some of the parents and friends approached us and forced to think about it. That is how after more than 10 years of rich experience, we launched our preschool brand SANFORT based on the U. K. Concept of preschool education in December 2009. Our curriculum and activities are designed by a team of highly experienced educationists from India & U. K. with collective experience of more than 200 years under the expert guidance of our chairman Dr. Anil Kumar & his wife Mrs. Sandhya Kumar who worked on British Education for more than 35 years.
The innovative curriculum and successfully running branches made SANFORT so popular that in a short span of five and a half years we reached out to 41 branches in Delhi- NCR and 87 branches in the country. Recently we entered to Primary & K-12 school business too.
We kept working on support mechanism to help our business partners to increase their profitability. I strongly believe that only best support mechanism can run and make the business sustainable. We never run behind the numbers and always believe in creating a network of successfully running branches.
A true World School
Sanfort instilled a niche and global concept in their curriculum, which is accredited to the “British Association of Early Childhood Education-U. K.” Sanfort has also earned the membership of Preschool Learning Alliance-U.K. The faculties are well trained and are getting regular updates and training from both of these organisations. The group is equipped with proper technical expertise and this is the only brand in the country, which is laden with modern technical prowess, which includes True Smart Learning System with ‘Touch N Learn’ technology, which makes learning more effective and interesting for the children.
Paving The Way
The company though never believed in taking part in the rat race but definitely believes in spreading its network across the country and is targeting to reach about 125 preschools and 5 K-12 schools by the end of FY 2015-16. The company’s business model is very clear & transparent and they give lifetime business opportunity to their franchisees, where unlike other brands franchisee don’t need to pay the franchise renewal fees after every certain interval.
The franchisees are backed by 360 degree support system which includes, selection of site, planning of interiors and exteriors of the branch, planning of the pre-launch, and post launch marketing activities, recruitment and training of the staff, etc. The company closely monitors the functioning of the branches and ensures the success of the branches with high returns. Apart from this, they also provide a fully detailed & structured curriculum, specially designed books, activity sheets and other teaching material. To maintain the brand value, system and standard of the group, they conduct regular quality assessments of the branches. Skill up-gradation programs & teacher’s trainings are done regularly and the teachers are provided with various teaching tools like flash cards, smart-Kit and monthly planner, etc.
The group pioneered the concept of play school in NCR and started their journey with 18 odd students. With sheer hard work and focused viewpoint they soon started front-runner of this business
Be our partner
According to S. K. Rathor Preschool is the best business today because it needs low investment, gives high returns and one can generate extra revenue by adding after school activities like day care, hobby classes and tuition classes. It’s recession free and is not impacted by business cycle. On the side K-12 school business needs heavy investments, running expenses are high, one need to wait for break-even and profits to come but its K-12 is a big business with big investment, which gives big returns for generations. Although the words franchisee and franchisors are very popular these days but we never believe in this concept and looked for business partners who can join and help us to expand our network, says Rathore.
