Mission – Why we would like to roll out Anchor Studio?
Anchor Studio would like to provide high quality, tailored private English tutoring yet at a reasonable price. We are confident that Anchor Studio is sustainable even setting our prices at half the prices of major English schools. Anchor Studio would like to spend money collected from our clients for their lessons, not for ad campaigns, which appear rather excessive these days.
We also would like to improve the compensation and labor conditions of English Instructors, who are the most important asset of Anchor Studio. We are confident to develop a sustainable school chain and to improve instructors’ compensation at the same time. Another important aspect is to provide our staff, particularly our female staff with an opportunity to enjoy working in a fun environment while developing their career.
Therefore, our school missions are:
- To help our clients achieve their goals whether they are small or big. Anchor Studio will work hard to provide quality English tutoring to English learners at all ages and all levels.
- To help improve the working environment for English instructors in Japan. Instructors are considered our most important asset, and will be treated accordingly.
- To provide our staff, particularly female staff with an opportunity to enjoy working in a fun environment while developing their career.
- Finally, to make our world better than today.
Business Model – What is unique about Anchor Studio?
1.Anchor Studio is dedicated to private English
tutoring – this policy is both a goal and means.
Private tutoring is the best way to improve English conversation skills, because clients can speak more and hear more than in a group lesson. Private tutoring is also superior as each lesson can be customized. The main obstacle for clients is the high cost. The reason why we will only provide private lessons is to maximize operational efficiency by making the best use of school space, providing more private lesson capacity and addressing all age groups in the simplest manner, allowing us to offer reasonable prices to our clients.
2.Anchor Studio provides quality English tutoring at a
reasonable “monthly” price
To be more affordable, Anchor Studio will charge monthly fees, allowing our clients to feel more comfortable when they sign up. With this client friendly monthly fee structure, we would still like to set our prices at half the price of major English schools. For the simplest operation, we will offer only 3 courses (excluding consumption tax):
• Intensive course (40 min private lesson x 8 times per month): Yen 31,200 (Yen 3,900 per lesson)
• Regular course (40 min private lesson x 4 times per month): Yen 18,000 (Yen 4,500 per lesson)
• Light course (40 min private lessons x 2 times per month): Yen 9,800 (Yen 4,900 per lesson)
Actually, this monthly fee level, i.e., Yen 4,500 is lower than the 4 student group lesson fee of major English schools. In other words, due to our cost saving efforts, we are able to offer quality private lessons for about the same price as group lessons. Also, clients can start private tutoring for only Yen 9,800 per month, which eliminates entry barriers for Anchor Studio.
3.Anchor Studio will be located in a convenient, highly visible location
Anchor Studio is opening its first school in the center of Tokyo, 2 min from Azabujyuban Station. Azabujyuban is an urban yet residential town with a traditional Japanese atmosphere (within a walking distance from Roppongi).
The school is right in front of Supermarket “Daiei” and the 100 yen shop “Can★Do,” and is highly visible on the “famous” and “busy” Azabujyuban Shopping Street, which has an over 300 year history. Anchor Studio would like to be supported by local residents, and to grow our customer base by word of mouth.
4.Anchor Studio will provide high quality English tutoring
by attracting top level instructors
Last but not least, we would like to make sure that our clients are satisfied with our quality. The most important is to ensure the quality of instructors, and we would like to hire high quality English instructors who are enthusiastic about English education. Details are listed in Section C Instructors.
In terms of textbooks, Anchor Studio will use world’s best sellers such as “Side by Side” for beginners or “Market Leader” for businesspersons. Our clients can easily buy these textbooks online at a very reasonable price. Anchor Studio has chosen textbooks with audio CDs or DVDs to help our clients follow up lessons at home. Anchor Studio recommends that our clients listen to audio CDs “casually” for 3-5 minutes every day, because most English learners in Japan are weak in English listening skills.
Instructors
Anchor Studio is looking for high quality English instructors who are enthusiastic about English education. We believe that a good English instructor is someone who communicates well, is enthusiastic to help students, and is fun to work with yet professional. Please note that Anchor Studio will limit acceptance to elementary school age to maintain an academic and professional atmosphere.
Anchor Studio’s candidates profiles
- Holder of a Bachelors’ degree
- Native English speaker
- At least one year experience in teaching English as a second language
- Professional, punctual, reliable, and flexible Currently resides in Japan
- Able to complete 12 month contract
Our proposal for a fulltime English instructor:
- Monthly Yen 270,000 – 300,000 plus travel expenses depending on skills and experience
- Semi-annual Bonuses
- Career advancement and pay increase opportunity as Anchor Studio grows
- Renewable 1-year contract
- 5 days a week (including Saturday and/or Sunday weekly) – 1-9pm weekdays, 10am-6pm weekends
- Visa sponsorship available
- Holidays include National Holidays, Christmas-New Year break (c.12 days), GW break (c.1 week) and Summer break (c.1 week)
- Plus personal 5 paid holidays
Our proposal for a part time English instructor:
- Hourly fee of Yen 2,400- 3,000 plus travel expenses depending on skills and experience
- At least 4 hour commitment
- Renewable 1-year contract
Recruitment Process
To apply to Anchor Studio, please send your resumes (including nationality, date of birth, address) and recent photos. It’d be appreciated if you could explain the following in your cover page:
- brief background
- position which you seek
- the reason you are interested
- preferred time schedule
- when you can start
- visa status and expiration date
We would like to invite selected candidates to an interview session to be held in Azabujyuban, Tokyo.
Anchor Studio will reward successful instructors well and we are happy to discuss a fair arrangement.
Corporate Background
Anchor Studio was developed by Mr. Norimitsu Niwa, Representative Director of Anchor Partner Limited, an independent consulting and investment advisory firm.
Message from the Founder
“I am excited to work hard with you to develop Anchor Studio as a professional yet fun place to work. Well over 20 years ago, I was a typical college student in Tokyo. I scored well at English at school, but could not speak a word. In my second year of college, I started English conversation at a major English school. The school fee was very expensive and upfront. The lessons were only for groups, and the expensive textbook set was not useful. However, this experience changed my life.
The English lessons led to my MBA in London, which in turn led to my success in the financial sector. At the end, I was making English presentations as a representative of a major global firm to a large audience from all over the world. After a 20 year professional career, I would like to pay back to society, and help everyone to reach their goal or dream. I am enthusiastic about English education because it enriched my life, and I am confident to develop Anchor Studio as a major English school chain in Japan.”
Background of Founder
Norimitsu was most recently Senior Managing Director of CVC Capital Partners, one of the largest private equity firms in the world. He spent over 20 years in investment banking and private equity sectors. He has been advising a number of large corporations, sitting on the boards of a number of public and private companies such as Tower Records, the largest foreign music retailer in Japan, Bellsystem24, the largest call center operator in Japan, and TechnoPro, the largest engineering staffing company in Japan. He holds a BA from Hitotsubashi University and an MBA with Distinction from London Business School, UK.
