Janison Education Group Limited (JAN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Welcome, everybody, to the Janison strategy update. I'll hand over to Ms. Sujata Stead, our Chief Executive. If you have questions, we will deal with them at the end. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone -- to everyone here in person in Sydney and also to those who are joining us online. A warm welcome to everyone to our strategy update today. And I know I've met many of you in the past the last couple of months. For those of you who haven't me, my name is Sujata Stead, and I'm the new CEO of, apologies to you, the new CEO of Janison Education Group. And been in the job for the last 4 months and very, very excited today to be presenting to you our updated strategy. [indiscernible] will be here as well [indiscernible]. But in particular, I'd like to introduce to my Chief Operating Officer, Rebecca Niemiec [indiscernible] during the Q&A session. So I definitely want just to give you a bit of context [indiscernible] in the last 4 months [indiscernible] very much trying to understand [indiscernible] the organization's history, our opportunities, [indiscernible] our staff, our shareholders [indiscernible] culmination of 4 months of work. And of course, all of that [indiscernible] I've been spent 20 years of my career in the business of [indiscernible] assessment, which Janison is a vendor providing technology platform. My background is very much working for high-stakes assessment organizations, whether the British Council in India and London, with the Cambridge University Press & Assessment in the U.K. and also in Australia. And my last job was the CEO of the joint venture, which was between Cambridge University Assessment and Box Hill Institute. And by the time I left, I've built that business from nothing to $130 million revenue business. And so when a chance and opportunity came, it was very, very exciting for me, another great organization in the assessment industry, which I love and I'm very passionate about, to have a better understanding of where we can take this organization. So I present to you today the updated strategy. And what is actually we'll be covering today is basically defining Janison, what is the organization's new strategy, why do we think we will be in the best place to be able to successfully achieve that new strategy; the market context in which we are operating; the blueprint for growth, so what are the key things we're going to do to make sure we are growing; and then the focus for year 1, this is for FY '25; and the team and culture, what are we going to do in terms of our executive leadership team and the culture to ensure we can deliver successfully on our strategy and very much the outlook, the outlook is very much at a very high level, our approach to building revenue and also cash flow and margins. So in terms of defining Janison, this is basically almost our strategy slide, now strategy on the page. So essentially what we'd be doing is that we want to be doubling down on our strength. And if you know what Janison's strength is, it's about delivering reliable, scalable and accessible digital assessments globally. If you look at when Janison started, when Wayne and Jacquie Houlden started Janison nearly 25 years back in country New South Wales, right, it's one of those pioneering organizations who developed a technologic platform, which actually provides kind of the whole platform end-to-end for delivery of high-stakes assessments and other mid- to low-stakes assessments as well globally across the world. If you look it before then, the main players in this industry were large -- very large established, typically American organizations. I think for an Australian organization that originates in country New South Wales to develop something is highly innovative, right? And this is something where our core expertise is. So my strategy is pretty much now kind of honing down, doubling down on basically what our core strength and expertise is, but in a manner that we are supported by delivery services, the delivery of assessments and also by content, select content because together between the technology being at the forefront, supported by our delivery services, which is helping organizations deliver assessments, the brick-and-mortar and invigilation and so on, along with the select content that we have, ensures that we can provide that end-to-end service to our customers, which is required for the long-term relationship with our customers, and all with the view of unlocking our growth opportunities for the organization. In terms of our customer value proposition, what is the value that we bring to our customers? If you look at it, for educators and learners who are seeking a seamless, impactful assessments experience, right? So we have the technology that ensures that when learners are taking their assessment, which is a very high stakes environment, right, because taking an assessment can be life changing and most often is life changing for the learners around the world, we can make sure that we offer that in an equitable, scalable, accessible and reliable manner so that the learners can have access to opportunities they deserve post assessment. But we're doing it -- but our value proposition is that we want to do it in a manner where one of Janison's core strengths is by bringing the human touch. Because at the end of the day, assessment technology -- we are using assessment technology, but the technology is to change the lives of human beings, change the lives of learners who are taking exams through our platform around the world. We want to make sure that we provide the best technology complemented by the human services, the human touch, the personalized services, the personalized support. And in my listening to our shareholders and the customers, customers in particular, that comes up often as one of the key strengths of Janison, of why people choose Janison and why we have the long-standing customers working with us for a pretty long time. It's the personalized support and service that we bring to make sure the technology journey is seamless and impactful. And in terms of our unique selling position. If you look at our technology platform, what the technology platform enables us to do is make sure, yes, deliver test in a scalable, reliable manner, but also in a manner which is equitable. So if you look at the example, we have with NAPLAN, we delivered the exam across Australia, perhaps one of the largest school exams of its kind in the world. But we also delivered in remote parts of the country where there is kind of Internet connectivity challenges, but in a manner where you can take the test digitally in an offline manner. Similarly, I think we can deliver at scale. Typically, if you look at NAPLAN exams, during peak, we are delivering 4.4 million tests to about 1.2 million candidates and nearly about 300,000 of those concurrently. So that ensures that it doesn't matter where our candidates are, we make sure we provide the equitable access to opportunities through our digital platform because at the core of what we do is the learners. At the core of what we do is education transformation and changing people's lives in a manner where the experience is impactful and accessible and equitable. So essentially, that's how I'd summarize what our value proposition is and what our unique selling points are. Now in terms of the purpose and mission, the purpose remains unchanged. Our purpose is to unlock the potential in every learner. At the end of the day, I think technology is a means to an end. We want to nurture the learners that we actually can -- we are interacting with. They can unlock their full potential to be able to demonstrate their skills, to be able to access opportunities post assessment through the experience they had through Janison platform. And our mission is very much to empower educators and learners worldwide with innovative and accessible digital assessment experiences. So it's very much, as an organization, we are staying true to our mission and staying true to our purpose, but doubling down and actually doing better and at scale. Now the question, of course, is why assessment technology, right? It's one of those areas, unless you are in the industry, you don't really hear of it much, right? It's only when you are either as a parent come across your child taking an exam in the platform or you're working, it's quite niche, right? And why is it that me as a CEO and us as an organization are so passionate about assessment technology? Because for us, assessments are not just tests. They're actually powerful tools that unlock potential and provide opportunities for learners to demonstrate their skills. And we see as an organization our opportunities to invest in that assessment technology to actually be able to ensure that learners around the world can access opportunities in an equitable, scalable and reliable manner. And by doing so, we transform the future of assessment as an industry. It's all about providing those best opportunities to learners by investing in the technology that has always been our core competency from day 1. Now why do you think Janison is in a strong position to actually say yes, our strategy is all about doubling down on our technology platform in a manner where we provide support services of helping organizations deliver and select content services. Why do we think we're in a strong position to be able to fulfill that? And here are the 5 key points. First is that we have got 25 years of experience in innovating. If you look at again very much, as I said, when Janison started by Wayne and Jacquie, the organization is founded under a great piece of innovation. Someone -- educators who've had both, who thought big, who did not feel intimidated by the geographical barriers of being in a very remote part of a very remote country, but we came up with a platform that actually delivers exams that very few organizations around the world could at that time. So we have that spirit of entrepreneurship, that spirit of innovation. And secondly, of course, as I mentioned about NAPLAN, we have that experience. We have the track record of being able to deliver a huge number of exams simultaneously across geographic regions and diverse Internet accessibility. And we know, often you hear in the papers, often organizations, assessment organizations, that's the biggest challenge when you're offering exams concurrently, that's where all the challenges come. We know what high-stakes assessment means. We know assessments actually make a difference to people's lives. We know the importance of making sure that's going to be done at scale in a reliable manner. And the end-to-end assessment solution. I know we often talk about the technology platform as a single platform. But if you unpack the platform, it actually does everything right from developing your items to actually being able to develop your question papers, to be able to render and people take the test on the platform, to be able to mark the papers, analyze the results, proctoring whether proctoring through AI or human invigilation and be able to release the results. And all of that, of course, is complemented, for example, for Department of Education in New South Wales also with the help of actually delivering the test. Often for organizations, delivering a test can be a challenge: how do you source your test centers, where do you source your invigilators. So all the delivery services, they make a huge difference. Plus, we also offer content services as well. And of course, our approach to content is a pragmatic one, whereas we do have some exams that we own some content like ICAS and AAS. But similarly, for projects like Department of Education, we also work with our partners like Cambridge University Press & Assessment, who provides the content given that they are world-class leaders in that field. We have expertise in education industry, as I mentioned. The organization is founded by educators. Many of our team members are educators. So we instinctively understand the needs of the learners and the educators. And finally, the last point, we have the data and actionable insights. I know a lot of us hear that, but not many of us actually are using the data. I wouldn't say Janison probably has been using data to its fullest capability, but that's the opportunity we have. We have a huge amount of data of 20 -- over 20 years of delivering exams, where we can use the data to actually make sure that we can -- our technology platform, our services are more insightful and more precise and more timely for our learners. And these are the 5 reasons, which makes me feel very confident that, yes, Janison can be -- will be -- can and will be that global leading organization in the field of technology platforms and by harnessing our core strengths as an organization. And that's very much kind of summary of what and the why of our strategy. And now next couple of slides where we want to focus on is the context of the market. Everything -- our strategy is not in isolation. It's very much in the context of the environment we are operating in, and this is very much the context. So if you look at the external market dynamics, the three words I used to summarize the external market dynamics is growth, AI and innovation, and of course, the competitive landscape is evolving. So of course, there's various data you can look at. We've also worked with Nous Consulting, a strategy consulting firm who specializes in our sector, worked with them. We've also read many different reports. And essentially, if you look at it, I think by a conservative estimate, there are different numbers floating around, but I choose to use a conservative estimate of that, the market -- the global assessment market is projected to grow to about USD 21 billion by 2030 and at a kind of between 10% to 12% sort of compound growth annual rate. So it is a market which is growing. It's a market that is increasing. And what are the key drivers for growth? The key drivers are 2 reasons. One is population growth, right, especially in emerging nations around the world where there is more young people, which automatically means more participation in education. And more participation in education means more need for assessment. But the key drivers, in addition to that, of course, is the way the whole assessment landscape is changing, right? There's more demand for globalized nature of assessment, more standardized assessments, which are transferable around the world, can be benchmarked to international standards. Also kind of shifting from the assessment on its own to what you call learning-oriented assessment, where you're embedding assessment into the entire learning cycle. And of course, the need for greater scalability, greater efficiency, all of that. And of course, all of this is getting possible because of the huge advancements we made in education technology. Then AI is a very interesting field for our industry because it's one of those industries where AI is harnessed in the right manner. Very much you have tools augmented by AI, very much what you call the human-in-the-loop model. That means a number of problems that we're solving for customers and for learners and educators. One of them these the problems of whether cost efficiency or scalability, operator accessibility. We are already working with quite a few of our customers trying to use AI to develop AI tools together with them to ensure that we can meet some of the challenges for our customers. Similarly, AI is one of those tools who's going to enhance learner experience. We are reading around whether it's in Australia or the U.K. the challenges that our school K-12 sector is facing, where there are fewer teachers going into the sector, more demands on teachers with larger class sizes. AI is one of the areas where we can make sure that when you, as a teacher, with very little supporting class managing a diverse range of 25 to 30 kids, you can actually provide a diverse personalized learning outcomes. It can help you with class preparation. It can also help you with providing those timely insightful kind of feedback to your candidates, which helps them on their own personalized journey. And data-driven insights. The data that we have at the moment is to be able to provide real-time analysis and feedback, allowing more precise measurements of learner performance. And that's where, I think, Janison is a huge strength. We have a huge strength of the data that we have. And the AI investments that are beginning to make actually is possible also because of the huge amount of data as an organization that can make AI a more precise tool. In terms of the evolving competitive landscape, one is, of course, we see that now we are -- almost all assessment providers, platform providers are investing in AI-driven tools to ensure that they can provide better experience and be more competitive. Of course, security integrity is always a big challenge in an industry where assessments can be high stakes and can be life-changing for the candidate who are taking the exams. So huge investments we made to kind of further strengthen security integrity through investment in technology. Inorganic growth, we are seeing a lot of inorganic growth through acquisitions to enter new markets or to kind of acquire new competencies. And finally, of course, slowly, you can see more innovative entrants into the market, which means the potential for market disruption. And this is very much summarizing the AI. AI is going to be transformative. It is only beginning to be transformative for our industry through the position of learning, the creator efficiency and the whole kind of real-time insights will fundamentally change. And from my perspective and from Janison's perspective, we see this as an opportunity for our organization, an opportunity to invest in these new trends and to be able to go back to Janison's root of innovation and technology to provide the best possible experience to our customers. Now in terms of -- that's very much in a nutshell what the strategy is and what the market context of the strategy is. Now what are we going to do as an organization to grow? How do we make sure that we can actually kind of leverage on those emerging trends of technology the market growth and we ensure that we can be the global leaders we want to be. And essentially, our growth strategy is underpinned by 2 areas. One is by repositioning the organization and the other one is scaling. And all of them done through innovation and through strategic partnerships. So I'll unpack that a bit more. By repositioning the 3 core things I mean, one is very much simplify the Janison story. Who are we as an organization, right, so that we -- actually our story resonates with our customers, resonates with our shareholders, with staff and the wider community as a whole, right? And that is we start doubling down on our technology platform. We start innovating and making investment in the platform, which actually beautifully aligns with our mission. Our mission is to drive impactful educational outcomes through innovative and accessible digital experiences. And secondly, what we want to do is also simplify our content portfolio. As you noted, there's quite a large number of products in our content portfolio of perhaps various degree of maturity. We want to make sure that we focus on the top 2, which is ICAS and AAS; our focus on maximizing value, making sure that they are profitable and they are actually developing value to our customers; and do all of this in a manner that is strengthening market presence. And the third one actually is very important because I've been in the assessment industry for nearly -- for over 20 years, right? And when you talk to people about what Janison does, people get impressed, but very few people have actually heard of Janison. It's one of those great stories that's never been told. So I think the focus has to be, whether directly by us or through our strategic partners, we actually kind of make it very clear to our customers what our brand proposition is, what is the value we bring and we are seen and heard. Because at the end of the day, we want to make sure that someone is thinking of an assessment platform, let's say, in the U.K., they are thinking of Janison. So the raising of the brand and the impact we create is really, really important. And then, of course, it's scaling up. So I keep talking about NAPLAN and Department of Education, right? But there are so many opportunities which are similar, right? While we've done some great stuff, I think there's an opportunity to do great stuff multiple times and about scaling. And firstly, of course, scaling is in the K-12 sector. That's where our core expertise is, whether it's actually working with the British Council, working with the Singapore Examination Board, with NAPLAN or the Department of Education, that's where. So our strategy is very much making sure our current K-12 customers, we strengthen relationships, we build those values, we maximize value for our customers and that we replicate them, scale them up whether in Australia or overseas. Then of course, we expand into new segments, either through growth of new markets or growth of market share, and that could be either testing and building in new sectors like higher education and vocational education. It could also be kind of expanding in other areas where we work where there's opportunity to grow, like professional accreditation and government. And we see doing a lot of this work through strategic partnerships. And I know I've used the words strategic partnerships quite a few times and that's basically in my experience in my last organization as well is how do you scale an organization at the bottom of the world, but where there is need for your services in other parts of the world, right? You can do one customer at a time, which is going to take us forever or we say that we actually partner with organizations who offer complementary services and products, who have those presence, who have the market insights, who have the distribution channels. A great example is the partnership we have with Cambridge University Press & Assessment for the New South Wales Department of Education contract, where we are providing, we are helping the DOE digitize their selective high school exams. We are providing the distribution and the delivery whereas Cambridge is providing the content. It's a great example of organizations being able to do -- organizations coming together. So a strategic partnership is going to be, but we want to be scaling up our strategic partners beyond Cambridge and be able to have the right partners in the right parts of the world so we can scale faster. And in terms of which markets we are going to go to, which markets we're going to go to is a combination -- is a pragmatic strategy. It's, of course, based in our market analysis of the markets with the highest opportunities balanced with risk. It could be OECD English-speaking countries similar to Australia where our experience in Australia matters. But also a combination of the emerging countries or emerging nations with high youth participation in education like Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa. So it's going to be a combination of obviously the English-speaking countries and emerging regions. Now this slide, I think what I'm trying to do in this slide is demonstrate basically what is our scaling strategy, how does the organization grow through the evolution of assessment technology across 3 horizons. And essentially, what I've done is horizon 1 is basically the next 3 years, FY '25 to FY '27, horizon 2 is FY '28 to '30 and horizon 3 is FY '30 onwards. So our focus now between now and FY '27 end is very much to build on our core and to make sure that we have an AI-augmented product. By scaling I mean very much how do we scale through strategic partners. We expand geographically and expand across new markets and sectors. We start building our scalable operating model, which is fit for purpose for a global business. We start growing our team in the U.K. In terms of our product, we see our product being augmented increasingly by AI, for example, AI marking, AI item development, AI kind of remote proctoring. So adding AI to augment the entire assessment cycle, and focusing a streamlined product portfolio of technology plus delivery plus a small select range of assessment content. We're looking at bringing the innovation spirit into the organization, establishing innovation hub, prototyping new ideas along with the customers and also integrating AI into our operating model. The work on that has only began, how do we use AI to actually make sure that in terms of our sales, our marketing, our account management is more precise, more scalable and cost efficient. Horizon 2 is very much once you've consolidated your position in horizon 1, that's about expanding, expanding and becoming almost as an emerging global leader positioned at the top of the industry, making sure we have a large established U.K. team, we have an established global operating model. Our product is AI-powered and we also try new kinds of other technology. And by FY '30 onwards, horizon 3, horizon 3 is onwards a cutting-edge technology and almost an opportunity to reimagine the entire organization's business model. So it's very much the whole kind of philosophy of evolving as our assessment technology evolves through kind of investment in product and through the pragmatic and smart strategy of scaling up. Now if that's our focus for us across -- over the next 5 years, what really is our focus in year 1, which is the current financial year. Year 1, our overarching goal is very much to build the foundation for long-term growth. And that's really, really critical to ensure as an organization is there sufficient investment in our product, in our vision of where this organization's products could go, what the customers need, how our products continue to evolve and meet the evolving needs of our customers, do we have the right foundation in terms of the right leadership team, right ways of working. So making sure that the right foundation ensures we can scale at pace and repeatable. From that perspective, we are looking at 5 core focus for this year. The first one is very much ensuring that we elevate our core platform by investing in the platform and integrating AI, by making sure we're aggressively growing our pipeline of opportunities, whether with existing or new customers. Refine our portfolio, make sure that we do a few things but do them really well. Thirdly, make sure that as an organization, we have the customer-centric and innovation-driven culture, that we keep the customer at the center of everything that we do. At the end of the day, as an organization, if you're customer-centric, we are obsessed by the customer; we are always delivering to the customer what the customer wants at cost, scope, time and quality, then the business will come automatically. Innovation-driven culture. We want to make sure that innovation is part of our DNA. And by innovation, I don't just mean AI and new technology. Innovation could be also how we look at things, how we do things, how we solve problems in a resource-constrained environment, right, always thinking outside the box. And of course, we want to evolve our leadership, very much making sure that we have an executive team who are based on functions. And while doing that, we're also establishing the right operating model for global scaling and start laying the foundation of building our brand and greater visibility of our brand. And all of that work we'll do -- all of that work is going to be underpinned by 5 base principles. One of them is very much our change narrative is all about simplifying our organization, unifying our organization and by being bold, right? And we do that by making sure we're always having the laser sharp focus on our customers; is focused on fewer products; and is focused on growth, efficiency and capability building. We also acknowledge that transformation is going to be multiyear, where year 1 is going to be very much really the foundation for sustained and repeatable growth. We want to make sure that we have some smart metrics, which should enable us to measure in a very timely manner how far or how on target we are in achieving our goals. We want to make sure that we're doing that by building the foundation for the right operating model. And all of this has been done in a manner that we are also kind of managing our cash flow prudently so that we are able to grow safely. In terms of our team and culture, this is very much the executive team. And the key things I want to point out -- the 2 key areas I want to point out here is that two of the roles in the executive team are going to be growth-focused roles. So there will be a growth-focused leader based in Australia, looking after all of Australia and the regions, right, from, let's say, South Asia to here. And there is going to be also a growth-focused executive based in the U.K. as well. So that way, I think we're making sure that we are investing in 2 growth-focused executives who are working on building the market, building the pipeline, building our brand and visibility because, remember, we serve an industry where the sales cycle is long. We've got to build those relationships. We've got to build those trust, right? So I want to be able to demonstrate we will put in all the hard work required to make sure that in the coming years, we have this growth required, whether this part of the world or from U.K. and surround. Similarly, we are also recruiting for a chief technology and product officer. That role is critical because we've got to make sure that our product, which is backed by technology, is actually best in class, is what customer needs. We are also looking for a technology and product leader who's going to be the thought leader in the space who's participating in driving many of the conversations around technology and product in our industry. Many of you know Stuart Halls, our CFO. We are also bringing risk to his portfolio to ensure that we are growing safely as we are implementing on the strategy. In terms of our ways of working, we want to make sure there are 4 ways of working that as an organization we stick to at all times. One is a customer-first in every decision. One is very that ambidextrous leadership that you need in these days. We should be able to serve customers what they need now, but in a manner that we're keeping one eye on the road ahead as well. So we change as the market changes and the customer needs change and evolves. We want to debate passionately and commit fully to make sure we are having this lively, good, robust debates required for true innovation. But once we make a decision, we are all behind it and making sure we deliver. And of course, having the spirit of learning and continuous improvement. Only through kind of learnings and improvements we continue to be selling as an motivation. In terms of outlook, I think our main 4 areas of how we'll be kind of growing our revenue is very much consolidating existing relationships, expanding those relationships and scaling that into kind of new markets and new geographies and focusing on meeting the end-to-end needs of our customers and fully understanding that our customers are looking for assessment technology, but often supported by services and we provide the full services to build those long-term relationships. In terms of margin and cash flow, very much, as you know, the recent reshaping of the business has created some headroom for investment in growth. And we are making sure that we are making those kind of very targeted investments to grow the business. We are also going to be investing incrementally in sales, marketing and account management as the business continues growing. And we'll align our cost base and investment in growth with our available capital. And finally, to wrap up, very much our strategy is to very much double down on delivering reliable, scalable and accessible digital assessments globally. And by doing that, we unlock new growth opportunities for our organization and do that in a manner where we are supported by our assessment delivery and content services to provide the end-to-end solution for customers. But we do it in a very simplified way, in a very conscious manner of fewer things rather than being all things for everybody. And this approach ensures that we are driving long-term value for our customers, which in turn means long-term sustainable value for our shareholders as well. So sorry, I spoke very fast because there's a lot to pack in, in a very short time frame. And how are we doing for time, Steve?

We have time for questions.

Great. So very happy to take any questions at this point.

[Operator Instructions] But very happy to take questions both from the room and also from those attending virtually.

We have a question here. This is Cameron.

Cameron Halkett from Wilsons. If we could just start with the role of AI within the platform. Looking here, you're seeking to elevate the platform and its offering. Conceptually, [indiscernible] AI to accelerate content creation, reporting, marketing aspect as well [indiscernible]

I think AI, if you look at the entire system cycle, there's an opportunity for kind of augmenting AI into almost the entire cycle. But the first area we are focusing where our founder, Wayne, is building is very much what we call an AI item development tool. To give an example, when we had the recent restructure, we halved the size of our item development team. And the whole idea is not to do less, but the idea is to augment it with AI tool. So it's very much how do we use an AI tool to create content, which is then reviewed for quality and all by human beings. So very much what we call human-in-the-loop model and that means that if you look at the number -- I come from assessment, that's where I spent my entire life, the number of items that human beings alone can develop versus the items, number of items, that can be generated if you use the AI tool. Then if you look at the scalability, if you also look at the cost, right, the cost of actually using AI is like you're halving your costs almost, right? And this is something that we're looking at doing both internally for our own internal item development, but we are also working with some of our customers to solve the customer problems and so -- and our approach has always been working with customers using AI to solve their problems. I know Rebecca is working on this project, so she'll be able to add anything else?

[indiscernible] maybe just the other parts to add. We are already using AI in our delivery components with our offering. It's in there. And then the next [indiscernible] is the market as well.

And we have that advantage because we have a huge amount of data that can make the AI tools we are developing quite precise. To a large extent, how good your teams are depends on the amount of data that you have.

So we should consider that volume of data the business has over a number of years in operating, there is a strategic advantage when you are using AI to developing this content. And every business at the moment, I think, is going to use AI or try to use AI in some way some rather than perhaps Janison or another business trying to use AI. The data you have over years of operation, can you expect the same for maybe some of your competitors would?

I would say yes. I think most of our competitors who are operating at this level probably have the data. We always have to be mindful we are using the data in a right, lawful manner. So that's really important. I think the whole legal and legitimate use of data, that's really, really important. But I would say that, yes, I think it's basically the two things, right? I remember a long time back, I had attended a session by the Chief Design Officer at LEGO, right, and they've talked to us about the whole concept of data, right? There was one image with a huge pile of LEGO blocks, right? Another picture was this beautiful house with the whole family and cars made of LEGO, right? I think most organizations do have that huge pile of LEGO blocks, which on its own is of no value to anyone. Our objective is how do we use that data to build that beautiful house, which actually creates pleasure for the little kid playing with the house and so on. So I think that's the main difference with data. A lot of organizations do have data, but how do use the data in a manner, which is, of course, lawful, but also in a manner where you actually leverage it to provide better experiences and solve customer problems.

We just have last one. When we look at the higher education market, which you should start in the second half [indiscernible] here to consider within the presentation. [indiscernible] when you think about strategic partnerships, would be these the likes of management system providers, learning management system providers or something else?

I think it could be a diverse range. It could be a diverse range of that. We want to make sure that we have the diverse range of strategic partners. They could be like organizations like Cambridge, who are actually world leaders in terms of brand, experience and quality in the field of assessment. It could be somebody who's actually exactly, as you said, Cameron, for LMS because if you look at the complementary services, the complementary services for the learning management, the complementary services for the assessment, the complementary services for the student mobility, so looking at basically what are the complementary services together we provide that cohesive end-to-end. We are already making some good progress on the strategic partnership area. So hopefully, I think when they come we look forward to sharing more details.

That's a big opportunity, right? Universities or something like that, the markets are amplified or [indiscernible] you guys can get on the industry [indiscernible]

Yes. Thank you.

Do we have any questions online? A question here in relation to performance targets. Have they been set for FY '25 and beyond?

So we do have what we call the KPIs that we have set internally for the business. They are essentially in other key areas where the business must move the needle in the right direction to build an organization -- to be able achieve that. So -- and my performance and the performance of our exec team will be kind of monitoring those KPIs.

Okay. And a follow-up question, which is in the same vein, just in relation to there's a reference to many qualitative objectives in the presentation. And the question is, what are the key numbers, both KPI and financial, that the business is going to be measured on forward? And are you going to -- are you intending to disclose those to shareholders?

So we are developing those. I mean, for FY '25, our KPIs are SMART. Those are all kind of specific measurables so that you can -- there is very little subjectivity to it. In terms of our longer-term numbers, we are developing them. But I am not in favor at month 4 to be sharing targets at this point. And so what we're going to do is have that more qualified, measured way of developing targets and KPIs and quantitative numbers that we, at the Board, establish them. But at this point, I am not going to be sharing any kind of quantitative detail because it's still very early days.

Okay. I've had a third question, the same vein. So I think something we might take away from today is to go back and examine how we strike a balance between what we disclosed publicly. We have an AGM coming up in November and we may well look at just what additional color we can provide around those metrics.

Yes, we can do that. I think, look, I acknowledge that, I do. But you have to remember that this is month 4. This is just hot off the press. So next step is going to be actually working with the business myself and developing a plan, the actionable plan basically, right? And the actionable plan is going to be an updated 3-year strategy. And that's going to be a rolling 3-year strategy, so which means that we can update it annually. It's not going to be something set in stone and then forgotten about, right? So I acknowledge that. I think this is very valid feedback. But the next step is going to be very much -- for FY '25, we have those SMART KPIs. We have the SMART metrics. We will do that for following years. But as you also understand, I'm not going to be setting KPIs for 3 years from now when the entire world could change in 3 years, right? So it's going to be a very agile and a very deliberate way of doing timely annual 3-year updates. But I think both -- at the AGM perhaps we can share what are the SMART metrics that we could share with the market, which enable you to measure our success as well.

Yes. Let's talk about [indiscernible] portfolio that are being some [indiscernible].

Do you want to repeat the question for audience online?

Yes. So the question from Will really from [indiscernible].

[indiscernible]

Okay. Yes. So the review of the existing assets in the context of simplifying the portfolio. I think -- if you look at Janison's portfolio, I think where the key -- if you look at the revenue, the top revenue comes from the platform and a combination of ICAS and AAS, right? And there's lots of other kind of smaller products at kind of very low degree of maturity, which are kind of source of distraction as well. We are looking at how do we simplify that. And in terms of where we are right now, Will, it's very much looking at kind of focusing on the top 3 that I mentioned: how do we deprioritize them, and following depriotization, what are the options? Do we just wrap them up, we sell them? So looking at that. So we're going through that process.

Sujata, you mentioned that U.K. and Australia where you're going to deploy some growth capability. Total addressable market was $21 billion-plus by 2030. You mentioned a large part of that's North America. That's absent from the presentation. Should we think that it's not on the road map? Or is it just any avenues? Or how do you think about that?

So at the moment, I think, Peter, from that perspective, I mean, what we're looking at is -- at the moment, of course, we're aligning our resources with the capital available. So we feel like strategically, if we have a growth executive in Australia and a growth executive in the U.K. you should be able to cover the majority of the growth markets, including North America. But in addition, what we're doing also is that we're establishing an advisory committee. The first advisory committee meeting is end of October. And the whole point of the advisory committee is actually to have leaders in our industries -- in the key markets, including Canada, U.S.A., U.K., Southeast Asia, who will be advising us, who'll be champions for us in those businesses -- in those regions. So North America is part of our road map. But given the investments in U.K. have already been made, we've got an executive based in the U.K. who's done some -- have some good advancements made in the last one year, we want to continue with the investment and support the surrounding region. And then as truly advisory committee, we made progress in other regions. And as the business keeps coming in, we incrementally grow our investments and growth-focused roles in other regions as well. Thanks, Peter.

We have one more question online. And this is, I think, in your 3.5 months in the business. What challenges have you found that you need to address in the coming months?

I think in terms of challenges, I'm just thinking through the #1 I could share. So I think in terms of -- I think there's an opportunity -- I see it as an opportunity for the organization to go back to its original kind of culture of innovation and customer centricity, right? It's actually been the issue that there's an opportunity for us to not be -- to kind of clarify our story of who we are, not just for our customers and shareholders, but internally for our staff as well. Simplify the organization, who we are, what we do, what customer problems do we solve, right, and then making sure that is actually complemented by the right culture of innovation and customer centricity. I think if you can achieve that this year, that's huge, I think. So I think that's just -- I see it as an opportunity for us to kind of reenergize this organization, be bold and have a laser-sharp focus on what we want to be. I'm fully acknowledging we can't be everything for everyone. I think who we want to be also has to have this hard conscious decision of who we don't want to be as well and not to be afraid to make those decisions.

Okay. Follow-up question that relates to cash and cash generation. It's really an outlook as to what the profile for cash looks like and have we considered a buyback?

In terms of -- if you look at year 1, which is FY '25, our objective in FY '25 is to have the laser-sharp focus of building our foundation, building our pipeline, building our brand visibility, the strategic functions and making sure we are steering the ship in the right direction for repeatable, scalable growth. But do it in a manner that at the same time we are delivering modest growth, the business is growing. And also as far our cash flow is concerned, we are managing the cash flow and managing that well. So that will be a great outcome for the business. And I'm -- kind of my target are to deliver the transformation while delivering some modest growth, while managing our cash flow.

So just on modest growth, how should we think about what is sort of modest growth maybe to you year-on-year and mindful that '25 is a really busy year?

Yes. I think I just don't want to share some exact numbers. But modest is growth means that the business is still growing. But remember that FY '25, as we mentioned, Peter, is a year of rebuilding the organization. And it's also a year that we are going to be starting it up -- starting some conscious decisions from customers that we let go. It'll be a year 1 of actually building after going slightly backwards, if that makes sense. So I'm looking at a level of modest growth, which means it's still growing but not in double digits, yes.

Which is really a '26 year our business when we expect to see the pipeline that's been -- the repositioning delivered to that stronger growth outlook?

Yes, that's the objective. The objective is that we made that -- there's a sharp investment in growth. In fact, many of my growth leaders, including Steve Smith, they're here. So if anyone wants to speak, they're here. But the answer is yes. I think we see this as a transformation being a longer term, 16 to 18 months, yes.

Okay. We might take one more question from online, and this is before your time, I think, Sujata, but it's a comment that when ICAS was originally purchased it was expected to be a strong growth engine. How do we plan to grow the business when schools are short of resources and parents are challenged by cost of living?

I think -- that's a good question. I think as far as ICAS is concerned, one thing to note is that the environment, as I think the question was asking -- the question has said, the environment in which ICAS operates has changed, right? So a very different environment. So for me, as a business, I think what we had to keep thinking about is, if you keep doing the same, it isn't going to achieve the results in an environment, in a market which has completely changed, right? It's almost like can we continue giving the service we're giving to customers who are actually our loyal, longtime users of ICAS, but is there actually an opportunity for us to reimagine ICAS as well? Reimagine basically one of the options could be it's an opportunity for a competition test like ICAS outside of Australia. But outside of Australia, I don't mean we're going to sell it my little point of time, but partnering, partnering with big school systems, right, partnering with organizations who work in the school sector and looking at can it be introduced to that. So I think from our perspective, I think we acknowledge that ICAS actually operates in a very different environment to when it was bought from University of New South Wales. So my strategy is to basically look at ICAS in the context of the school system, whether in Australia or overseas right now, what value can it add and how can we deliver the value, whether it's actually through strategic partnerships, introducing it to school systems around the world and could we actually use technology to provide better timely services and instruction.

Okay. We have one more question. It was too good a question not to ask. In your previous roles, could you please provide an example or give us something back to your track record of turning around a business that has a strong legacy and perhaps it lost its way?

Where do I even begin, right? So yes, that is my track record and that is actually what made me sort of transfer to Janison -- to join Janison, right? So if you look back at my last role as the CEO of Cambridge Box Hill Language Assessment. So I was the founding CEO of the company. And I moved from Cambridge in the U.K. to Australia in 2013 to establish the company. At that time, I think Janison is now a million times better positioned now than when OET, those of you who are familiar with OET in 2013, which was if I can use the language, one step away from the brink, right? And my -- so how do you actually transform an organization? The biggest challenge I had is how do you transform an organization where literally there are 9 people in the entire business. You have got customers who are shouting and you've got no money, right? So then what I did is I worked with this research company called Forethought and I worked with them previously in my time at IELTS as well. So I brought them in and said, can you help me do a stakeholder or a customer perception kind of satisfaction survey so basically to understand what key drivers of satisfaction for our candidates were. What mattered to them most? And how are we performing against that? And then, of course, it came back with not 15 things or 20 things matter the most to the customers. But actually, the top -- excuse me, the top 3 things matter where the needle will shift in the right direction is making sure we're giving them a professionalized testing experience, right, the test is accessible. It is that people don't have to travel long distance to take a test. And there's enough preparation material available. And I only focused on those 3 for the first 2 years. I did not look at the rest, right? And also how do you make sure you have accessible test delivery network around the world, right, and that was through strategic partnership with our majority shareholder, Cambridge, we built a global partnership. So rather than the whole philosophy of do you recreate the [ wheel ] or you actually kind of piggyback with your majority shareholder, who's a good world leader in that. So as a result, the organization actually posted profit in year 1, which is 2014. And then when you established that leadership and you kind of stabilized the business, it's all about growth, right? And while you're growing and expanding the business, you have to be able -- to actually be able to take calculated risk as well, very much the whole concept of you're never going to be 100% ready. If you were going to wait for 100% ready, things will never happen. So I realized that when actually you are 80% ready, you start expanding. And the rest, 20%, you can build as the new business comes in. So having the very pragmatic approach of flying the plane, building it at the same time and also making those bold decisions in the middle of the pandemic like OET nearly came to a standstill because there was no revenue coming in. And at that time, we had the opportunity to break into the U.S. and it's all about being honest and transparent with your customers, right? Our U.S. customers said that in the middle of the pandemic, difficult for international medical branches to come in because the exam they were using [indiscernible]. So here was an opportunity for OET to actually help U.S. health care in a time for once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. But we were honest and transparent and said we were not ready. Our computer-based testing, we had just signed a contract for delivery computer-based test, but we actually accelerated the project and delivered an 18-month project in 3 months. But fully acknowledging in 3 months it was a minimum viable product to deliver tests to our U.S. candidates. We were honest and said we will both learn, and through the learnings we get better. So I think one of those growth, what I've learned through that is enough. Coming to a customer in times of help, you build a loyalty, but you also have to be honest and transparent of how together we will learn. And being able to also understand that in times -- how sometimes what matters is the customer first can be delivered and then you keep improving on that. So hopefully, the very roundabout way I've answered your question about, so that's always been my track record for the last 11 years of turning around businesses. I think Janison is in a great position. It's got $40 million-plus of revenue. It's got some amazing customers, very loyal and very up high stakes, right? And we've got a great team. So it's all about how do we make sure that we actually keep giving our customers what they need and what they deserve, but at the same time, also keep expanding and also make sure that we reenergize the organization and refocus on what that matters the most.

Okay. I think that's great note to finish. Thanks very much, Sujata. Thank you all for your attendance in person and online.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.