BRAND OF THE YEAR 2018: AVANSE FINANCIAL SERVICES

Category: Education Loans

Avanse Financial Services Limited is one of India’s fastest growing education finance company committed to facilitating and fulfilling academic dreams of talented young students. With its new age, flexible and tailored financial solutions, Avanse addresses higher education needs of Indian youth enabling them to ‘Aspire without Boundaries’.

Product/Service Offering

Education Loan (B2C) – Loans for financing higher education needs of students. With its new age, flexible and tailored financial solutions, Avanse addresses higher education needs of the Indian youth by making higher education affordable , enabling them to ‘Aspire without Boundaries’. Avanse has fulfilled dreams of over 10,000+ students for education  across 6000+ courses in 45+ countries. Avanse has recently extended its solutions to help parents fund their child’s school fees through their partnership with fintech player Easrly Salary.

Educational Institutional Loan (B2B) – Loans for financing working and growth capital of educational institutes.

Loans for SME, Micro Enterprises and Individuals – As part of Avanse’s transformation into a diversified NBFC, these would range of lending solutions to meet specific needs of each customer segment.

Registered & Head Office: Mumbai, Maharashtra

Country:  India

Avanse Financial Services Limited , is a NBFC arm of Wadhawan global capital private limited (WGC), a leading  financial services group in India with businesses across Lending , Asset Management & Insurance with total assets under management of ~US$ 22 billion. Avanse is an associate company of DHFL , the flagship company of WGC, and one of the leading housing finance company in India . International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank is a key stakeholder with 20% equity stake in Avanse.

Company Vision:

To be a Leading Customer Centric Diversified NBFC focused on Profitable Growth across domains of Consumer, MSME and Commercial Businesses with leadership position in Education Loans.

Company Mission:

To create easy and affordable solutions that let Indians achieve their aspirations by leveraging customer understanding, technology and partnerships. 

Ethos of the Brand:

Avanse has been a brand on a mission to make quality education affordable to students across the country. The brand seeks to reach out to the students and empower them to reach their goals without being shackled by financial constraints. In line with this mission, the education infrastructure funding business of Avanse, seeks to improve the quality and scale of educational infrastructure in the country by funding schools and educational institutions.

Avanse has been at the forefront of creating great value for customers by offering features including 100% Funding, Funding beyond tuition fees (covering visa, travel and stay expenses), Instant sanctions for select programs and universities and loans without any limit. The brand has also broken conventions and funded unconventional programs including fine arts, music and vocational programs.

Total Number of Employees in the Company:

Just over 250+ employees. The leadership team is from diverse background with a cumulative 200+ years of experience across the leading financial services organizations.

Countries the brand is present:

An Indian company having a presence in 16 locations across the country through our offices and we also leverage over 200 DHFL offices to reach out to students in other locations. The Brand solutions have funded over 10,000+ students across 6000+ courses in 1900+ institutes across India and over 45+ countries.

What would you define as the unique value proposition of the product: the functional, emotional and differentiating product benefits that have contributed to providing an enduring brand experience to customers?

Avanse helps student’s in getting the education they desire independently, without burdening the family and without setting boundaries through student centric customized solutions.

Avanse has transitioned from “mortgage/collateral driven“ education loan to “student led approach” whereby Student academics and future employability  is taken into consideration for granting loan.

And to build on our student centric proposition we offer benefits including 100% Funding, Funding beyond tuition fees (covering visa, travel and stay expenses), Instant sanctions for select programs and universities and loans without any limit.

What are the physical, character and personality attributes of the brand that have evoked and inspired consumers’ self-expression and personal identity?

Avanse is a young, friendly and approachable brand that students can easily connect with for advice and for their financial needs. It is a brand that believes in working with the student to ensure that the student gets the personalized solution he/she needs.

Please provide an insight into the brand marketing strategies that have effectively penetrated consumers’ psyche, established a meaningful relationship with the target audiences and ensured positive brand perception.

The brand seeks to connect with students using Digital and Social Media supplemented by activation programs in colleges, educational fairs and festivals. The brand also collaborates with counselors and business partners, online and on-ground,  to educate and counsel students. Avanse also works with affiliates and financial aggregators to reach out to students who are actively seeking a financial solution.

How has the brand extended its presence to the frontiers of internet advertising and social networking? What is the level of significance the brand accords to utilizing social media as a competitive edge?

The brand sees digital media and social media as critical components of strategy in terms of communication, engagement and also business generation. Digital Media gives Avanse every opportunity to achieve brand and business objectives.

Please outline a few key marketing endeavours in the past decade that you feel have been landmark initiatives in reinforcing the legacy of the brand’s promise to influence consumer intent and enhanced the brand’s propensity to drive affirmative consumer action.

Avanse clearly sees its role as a key enabler in helping students achieve their dreams and every effort is taken to work alongside students through their journey.

While we do our campaigns to build awareness for the brand the emphasis is also on educating students on options and financial solutions through digital content, online and offline seminars and counseling sessions as well as tie ups with consultants & partners. We have an extensive library on our website and social media properties on country and program specific content which we keep creating in line with student needs and trends.

We have done extensive college contact programs independently and in collaboration with partners in the past and are in the process of kicking off a large counseling campaign covering over 250 engineering colleges in the first phase itself.

 

How has the brand derived strength from innovation as a sustainable   differentiating strategy adding to long-term brand equity? Please provide a few instances of measures implemented towards this goal.

Innovation is seen as a critical success factor in Avanse and finds a large role in our culture and our work. Some of our initiatives where you will see Innovation in action and that directly impacts the customer experience and enhance productivity are :

• Straight through Loan processing with automated score cards based on pre-defined parameters allowing education loan sanctions in less than a day 
• Use of mobile app based solution allowing loans to ‘New to Credit’ customers allowing financial access within minutes.
• Digitization of systems and processes to offer high quality customer experience.
• Mobile based e-learning tool for all our employees to support customer and operational excellence.

What is the key leadership values that drives the brand.

We have clearly set out values that each and every employee is expected to imbibe starting with the leadership. Some of the leadership values being  – Customer Centricity, Transparency, Meritocracy, Entrepreneurial  Spirit , Innovative Mindset and Collaboration.

What type of employee satisfaction programs are conducted by your brand?

We track and measure NPS score across all our key stakeholders including our employees through a easy , digital tool that gives us real time insights and actionable inputs.

How much does your brand emphasis on employee training & development, kindly elaborate?

We see it as a critical aspect of building a motivated workforce and one which has a direct impact on our customer experience as well. We have a experienced Learning and Development team within Avanse to support our talent nurturing and enhancement objective on a regular basis. And we also leverage technology to reach out to our team to offer training on the go through Avanse Navigator – a mobile app that allows access to up-to- date training content anytime and anywhere.

What are your brands most effective intangible motivational tools for employees?

While there are several aspects to this, the key ones would be the culture and the brand’s well defined purpose for each of our businesses.   For eg in Education we have defined our purpose – “ to make quality education affordable for Indians”.

And to support this purpose , we have a culture which focuses on meritocracy, entrepreneurship, innovation, transparency, teamwork/ collaboration  with everyone including the leadership consistently showcasing and awarding behavior in line with our cultural values.

Kindly elaborate on your existing & potential CSR activities.

We have been steadfastly following our purpose and ensuring that we take every step to support each and every student / parent who approaches us in getting the solution they need.

There are deviations made to assist deserving students through better structured solutions and fee waivers.  Going further we will be working with partners in the field of education to support a larger corporate level initiative to help financially challenged but deserving students through various activities.

Which area of social responsibility is more significant for your brand ?

We see our Education Financing industry as a strong pillar of the country’s progress and future growth. Therefore we will continue to do significant work in the field of education – a developmental area that we appreciate and understand well.

What type of measures your brand has adopted to protect environment?

We have taken several initiatives in our own way to reduce environmental burden as a corporate and as a team of socially responsible individuals. However we believe in the power of education to deliver big change and we are exploring such opportunities in the field of environment protection to support this mission.