BYJU’S is working “very hard to achieve profitability at the group level in the coming year itself,” CEO Byju Raveendran told employees in an email thanking them for contributions over the past 12 month.
Rocky year
He added that 2022 will be seen as the company’s defining year. “After many rocking years, we needed a rocky year to pave the way for our long-term success and resilience. I have always maintained that we are pioneers in execution, not in perfection. Ultimately, the challenges faced this year have equipped us to weather every future storm and thrive for decades to come,” Raveendran added.
The letter noted that while the first six years of BYJU’S were those of steady growth, the next four – from 2017 to 2021 –saw the company grow exponentially. The company has grown product-wise, and service-wise. BYJU’S grew organically, and inorganically in India and around the world.
“The third, final and forever phase of BYJU’S will be that of sustainable growth. While we were expecting this third phase to begin in 2024, the macro-economic changes of 2022 meant that we had to embark on the path to profitability this year itself. ‘Growth with efficiency’ became our theme for this year,” he said.
Prioritizsing rigorously
This did not mean BYJU’s will be investing less, but investing better and prioritising more rigorously. “Unfortunately, this also meant I had to make the most painful decision of my life by letting go of some of our family members. The prevailing macroe-conomic conditions and the integration of our acquired companies made this inevitable,” said Raveendran.
BYJU’S announced 2,500 layoffs across the group in October. Prior to this, the edtechcompany also laid off around 500 people across Whitehat Jr. and Toppr in an attempt to recalibrate its business priorities
Raveendran admitted that this was a challenging year for BYJU’S and said that the words of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami best summarise the significance of this year for him: “And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”